Dashboard customization for existing user dashboard and site dashboard using FTP in Alfresco Share

While working in Alfresco and getting to know more and more about Alfresco, I have found it really amazing how Alfresco has developed over the years. One of the requirements that I was working on during one of the projects was to customize the dashboard layouts of all the existing users and the existing sites. To be specific, my requirement was to change the dashboard layout of all the existing users and all the existing sites to a 3- column layout.

Moreover, in case of the user dashboard, the 3^rd column had to be fixed with two particular dashlets for all the users such that the users cannot add or change dashlets in the third column neither can they change their dashboard layout. In case of the site dashboard, the first column had to be fixed with two particular dashlets such that the site manager cannot add or change the dashlets in the first column neither can they change the dashboard layout of that site. And there were some 8000 users and 300 sites in the system.

To set the dashboard layout and dashlets in specific columns for new users and new sites, we can do the desired changes in the presets.xml file. But to do changes for the existing users and the existing sites is not that easy. One of the ways to achieve this is through FTP.

The basic thought of customizing the dashboard layout of the existing users and sites was that there must be a file that has the details of the dashboard layouts and dashlets to be called when the dashboard is loaded for the first time. If we are able to let alfresco ignore that file and use the settings defined in presets.xml file then our work is easily done. We can define our desired dashboard layouts and desired dashlets in the presets.xml file and then somehow call this file for all the existing users and all the existing sites.

Well, the file which holds the details of the dashboard layouts for the existing users and the existing sites is dashboard.xml and this file can be accessed via ftp through AVM.

Here is how you can do it. First lets see how we can customize the dashboard layout for the existing USERS:

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1. Set up an FTP connection.

2. To enable FTP go to file-servers.properties file in {Tomcat-Home}\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\subsystems\fileServers\default.

3. Open the file-servers.properties file, set ftp.enabled=true and save it.

4. Open Command Prompt.

5. Type ftp {server-name} [for eg:- ftp localhost] and press enter.

6. Enter the username and password for the administrator account.

7. Open My Computer.

8. In the address bar, type ftp://{server-name} [for eg:- ftp://localhost ] and press enter.

9. Enter the credentials for administrator account.

10.Open location ftp://{server-name}/AVM/sitestore/HEAD/DATA/alfresco/site-data/pages/user/

11.There you'll see individual folders of every user.

12.BackUp and Delete all the folders.

13.Restart the server.

14.Now the dashboard layout and the dashlets will be imported from the presets.xml file.

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After following the above steps, you will be able to set the dashboard layout and the dashlets positions

as you have mentioned in the presets.xml file for the user-dashboards.

Now lets see how we can customize the dashboard layout for the existing SITES:

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1. Set up an FTP connection.

2. To enable FTP go to file-servers.properties file in {Tomcat-Home}\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\subsystems\fileServers\default.

3. Open the file-servers.properties file, set ftp.enabled=true and save it.

4. Open Command Prompt.

5. Type ftp {server-name} [for eg:- ftp localhost] and press enter.

6. Enter the username and password for the administrator account.

7. Open My Computer.

8. In the address bar, type ftp://{server-name} [for eg:- ftp://localhost ] and press enter.

9. Enter the credentials for administrator account.

10.Open location ftp://{server-name}/AVM/sitestore/HEAD/DATA/alfresco/site-data/pages/site/

11.There you'll see individual folders of every site.

12.BackUp and Delete all the folders.

13.Restart the server.

14.Run the below mentioned web script.

14.Now the dashboard layout and the dashlets will be imported from the presets.xml file.

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enable-sites.js

function main()

{

var sites = null;

var result = remote.call("/api/sites");

model.status = "fail";

if (result.status == 200) {

sites = eval('(' + result + ')');

var globalPreset = "site-dashboard"; // sitePreset

var tokens = new Array();

if(sites != null && sites.length > 0)

{

for(var i =0; i < sites.length; i++)

{

tokens["siteid"] = sites[i].shortName;

sitedata.newPreset(globalPreset, tokens);

}

model.status = "ok";

}

}

}

main();

(This is just the javascript code. Make the corresponding xml and ftl files to make it a web script).

After following the above steps, you will be able to set the dashboard layout and the dashlets positions as you have mentioned in the presets.xml file for the site-dashboards.

Before applying the changes to all the users and sites, try to apply the change to a single user dashboard and a single site dashboard.