Defining default layouts

To define the layout and identify which forms will appear in the home page panels by default, you must create at least one entry in the AR System Home Page Layout form. This form can contain two types of entries, defined by the Type field:

  • Default—All layouts defined by the administrator are of this type. Each administrator-defined Default layout is the default for a given group and priority assignment.
    For all Default type layouts, the User field value is "Any". In other words, AR System server ignores this field when the layout type is Default.
  • Custom—When a user modifies the layout of his or her home page and saves the modified layout, it is saved as a Custom type entry in the form. The user is identified in the User field. Each user can have only one Custom layout.
    Do not attempt to create or modify Custom entries in the Layout form. These entries are managed by workflow. If you delete a Custom entry, the user's layout returns to the Default for that user. 


Related topics

Defining-form-views-for-the-customizable-home-page

Defining-form-descriptors

You can define different Default layouts to be used by different access control groups. When any user logs in, the home page layout that appears is controlled by the user's group membership. If a user is a member of more than one group with a defined layout, the conflict is resolved by the priority setting.

To create a default layout

  1. Open the AR System Home Page Layout form in New mode.

  2. Complete the fields in the form as described in the following table.

    Field name

    Description

    Banner Title

    Enter the title that appears in the upper-left corner of the home page.

    Page Title

    (Optional) Enter a subtitle for the home page, if any. It appears just below the banner title.

    Priority

    Enter the priority for this Default layout. Priority is used to resolve conflicts when a user belongs to groups that have different default layouts. In this case, the layout with the lower value in the Priority field is used. See Assigning group and priority settings to layouts below.

    Groups

    Select the groups that will use this Default home page layout. Permission to layouts is controlled by row level access on the layout form.

    Locale

    (Optional) Use this field only to localize the Banner Title and Page Title for the layout. If you create separate versions of the layout for each locale, you must make sure the layout definitions are consistent and complete, following these guidelines:

    • You must create a separate layouts for every locale
    • If the layout is to be used with the default locale of the server, leave this field blank.
    • If the layout is to be used in another locale, enter the two-character locale value, such as fr for French.
    • For locales where country-specific locales are supported for the same language, and these are supported consistently across the applications installed, enter the full locale specifier. For example, enter pt_BR for Brazilian Portuguese.

    Alternatively, to perform all localization based on the descriptor form entries, leave this field blank in the Layout form and use the same Content ID for descriptors that represent the same content, as described in Defining-form-descriptors. In this case, you cannot localize the Banner Title and Page Title for the layout.

    Layout

    For each panel in the home page, select a descriptor to identify the form that will appear in the panel for the Default layout.

    Application List Initial State

    Select whether or not the application list on the home page is expanded when the user opens the home page.

    • Expanded—The application list appears as a navigation bar on the left side of the home page.
    • Collapsed—The application list is hidden, but can be expanded by the user.
  3. Save the layout. 

Assigning group and priority settings to layouts

The Default layout that appears for a user at login time is controlled by group membership. For example, you might create one home page layout for the group HelpDesk and a different home page layout for the group Infrastructure. However, if a user belongs to both of these groups, AR System server must determine which Default home page layout to use when the user logs in. This is the purpose of the Priority field.

In case of a group conflict, the layout with the lowest value in the Priority field is used. For example, if the Default layout assigned to the HelpDesk group has priority 3, and the Default layout assigned to the Infrastructure group has priority 4, a user belonging to both groups will see the layout for the HelpDesk group. If more than one Default layout exists for the same group at the same priority level, either home page layout might appear.

Best practice
We recommend that you configure a Default layout with a high number (such as 10) in the Priority field, with Group permission assigned to Public. This layout acts as a true default home page for any users who don't belong to groups with specified Default layouts. 

We also recommend that you use 1 as the lowest value for layouts assigned to groups. This reserves the priority setting of 0 for use by the administrator, so you can test a layout before making it available. To test a layout, enter the Administrator group in the Groups field for the layout being tested, and set the priority to 0. In this case, only members of the Administrator group will see this layout, and it will have highest priority when a member of Administrator logs in.

Laying out the panels

In the Layout area of the AR System Home Page Layout form, shown in the following figure, you control how many panels appear on the home page, and which form descriptors appear by default. The user can select other forms to display in a panel from the list of descriptors, but cannot add panel areas to the home page.

The Layout area of the AR System Home Page Layout form

CustomHomePage-LayoutDefinition.gif

By assigning descriptors to the panels, you determine which panels are used on the home page:

  • A single panel expands to fill the home page panel area.
  • Two panels can appear horizontally or vertically. If you assign descriptors as shown in the following figure, the two panels will be tiled horizontally on the home page. If you assign descriptors to the two top panels, they will be tiled vertically.
  • For three panels, you can have one panel on the left and two on the right, or vice-versa. There is no layout using one panel above and two below, or two above and one below.

 

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