User settings for the selection and layout of their dashboard is saved in browser cookies.
Cookies and browser histories are routinely deleted as a troubleshooting tool and when this happens, user settings in PE are wiped out. Many people go to a lot of effort to set up their screens just right and this can quickly be destroyed by deleting cookies.
Seems a better design would be to save these settings in the database. That way your personalized settings are portable and persistent.
I completely agree! This has been a frustration for many of our users.
The reason we stopped saving the dashlet layouts and the menu preferences in the database and moved it to local storage was so that you could have different layouts on different devices. What dashlets you want on your dashboard on your main machine will probably be different from what you want on a tablet or phone.
I do understand that clearing local storage zaps the settings and that this is an irritation.
If this request gets peoples votes we can look at how we can keep the flexibility but remove the pain.
This would solve a lot of our problems, using RDS makes using local storage very troublesome and we have fudge a fix. Could PE store multiple 'master' layouts (storing the prefered dashlet options etc.) per user in a table and use local storage to simply remember which master layout to use on that device i.e. mobile, desktop or tablet etc.
Totally agree. For an install that only utilises PCs on a LAN with frequrent hotdesking this has been a right pain. It also has removed the ability to centrally control new dashlet rollout or dashlet setup for "difficult" users. Could we not just have a backend switch to choose how deashlet config is stored and retrieved?
To centrally rollout new dashboard layouts to new users or for when staff have zapped their cache, there is the option to set dashboard defaults and grade defaults in the Admin menu. These both work on layouts being set up by grade of staff.
Thanks Michelle, but the grade level isn't as granular as we were used to in v7.2 where it was user level.
This will be reviewed after the billing rewrite
We will tie the selections to the screen resolution so you can still have different devices with different set ups
This is planned for 9.8. We will add Save and Clear options to the staff settings page to save/ clear user preferences
Great news Michelle thanks for letting us know.
This has been completed and will be available when 9.8 is released