Dashboards

A dashboard fills the main M-Files pane rather than the strip beside an object. Use one where what you want to show is not about a single object — a team’s workload, this month’s figures, a queue of things waiting.

A dashboard occupies the whole pane, so it has room for several plots and a list at once.

How a dashboard differs from a portal

A dashboard takes the same components as a portal and lays them out in the same grid. Two things are different.

It has no subject object. Nothing on a dashboard reads from a selected object, and there is no object to edit, so a dashboard never draws the workflow and editing footer that a portal draws. Anything showing data has to fetch it — through a view, a query or a data source.

It is reached from a menu rather than from the right-hand pane: the task pane in the classic client, the top-pane menu in the newer one. That makes a dashboard available while a metadata card, a portal or a document preview is open, rather than replacing what the user is looking at.

Dashboards listed in the menu under their group, and reachable without leaving the current object.

Dashboard groups

Groups decide how the menu is organised. They are defined once at the top level of the CtrlPortals configuration, under Dashboard groups, not on the dashboards themselves. A group needs a label, which is what the menu shows, and a unique identifier, which is what a dashboard refers to.

Each group becomes a heading in the menu, with its dashboards under it.

After adding a group, refresh the configuration before going further. Until you do, the group does not appear in the list a dashboard can choose from.

A dashboard can then be a member of several groups at once, and appears under each of them.

One dashboard listed in three groups, so it appears under each in the menu.

A dashboard that belongs to no group is not lost: it is put in a default group labelled CtrlPortals, which is also where the Refresh configuration command sits.

Who sees a dashboard

A group can be narrowed with Target user groups — M-Files user groups, from the vault’s users and user groups in M-Files Admin, not named access control lists.

The filtering happens on the server, before the configuration reaches the client, and it works through the groups rather than on the dashboard directly:

A group with no target user groups is offered to everyone.
A group with target user groups reaches only users who belong to at least one of them.
A dashboard reaches a user when it is in no group at all, or when at least one of its groups reaches that user.

A user outside every group never receives the dashboard’s configuration, so there is nothing on the client to find by other means.

Binding a dashboard to a view

A dashboard can be bound to an M-Files view under Views. Opening that view then opens the dashboard instead of the view’s contents, which is how you give a dashboard a shortcut that does not depend on the menu.

A dashboard bound to a view opens whenever that view is opened.

Built-in M-Files views can be used as well. The configuration lists every view available to choose from when you add one.

Setting Dashboard Visibility to Hidden keeps a dashboard out of the menu while leaving it reachable. Use it for a dashboard that should only be opened through a view binding.

Hiding changes the menu, not access: a hidden dashboard is still delivered to every user its groups reach.

The setting is read by the classic client’s task pane. The newer M-Files UI does not read it, so a hidden dashboard still appears in its top-pane menu; do not rely on hiding to keep a dashboard out of sight there.

Replacing the home screen

Replace Home Screen puts a dashboard where the M-Files home view would be, which is how the four-quadrant layout of classic M-Files is recreated.

It replaces the home screen for every user the dashboard reaches — all users when the dashboard is in no group, and only the members of the targeted user groups when it is. If more than one dashboard has the setting on, the first of them in the configuration is the one that appears.

Settings

Revision

Type: Whole number
Setting name: revision

Bumped by the server on every write of this item, and what a later save is merged against (ItemSave): the editor sends it back untouched, so the server knows which revision that editor loaded. Not for hands.

TitleRequired

Type: Text

The title that is displayed either in the dashboard menu or in the tab of a portal.

Replace Home Screen

Type: Yes or no

If set to true, this dashboard will replace the home screen for users that have access to this dashboard. Note: This might have unexpected effects if multiple dashboards have this option enabled. Default: no.

Dashboard Visibility

Type: One of a list
Default: Visible

Determines if a dashboard is visible to users in the menus. Hidden dashboards can still be accessed directly via views. Default: Visible.

Hidden
Visible

Dashboard Theme

Type: Portal theme

Defines the visual theme for this dashboard. Settings here override the default theme settings.

Settings in this group — 18 of them

Groups

Type: List of Group

Choose which groups, defined in 'Dashboard Groups', to show this dashboard in.

Settings on each entry — 1 of them

Views

Type: List of View link

Select the views that will display this dashboard when opened.