Shared & Per-User Layout

A dashboard's arrangement can be shared across everybody, or each person can arrange their own.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Dashboards:

• Custom Dashboard Blocks — the blocks themselves
• Dashboard Styles — the styling applied to them
• Shared Dashboard Layout — the arrangement shared across users

Architect Panel → Security:

• Permissions — who may change a shared layout

Shared

Everybody sees the same thing. The advantages are real:

• You can rely on it. "Look at the top left block" means something.
• New starters get a considered arrangement rather than an empty screen.
• One place to improve it for everybody.

Per-user

Each person arranges their own. Suits teams whose roles genuinely differ, and people who use the system all day and know what they want in front of them.

The empty dashboard problem

Per-user layouts have one serious failure mode: a new starter signs in and sees nothing, or a default nobody thought about. They do not know what is available, so they do not arrange anything, and the dashboard is never used.

So even where people can arrange their own, a good shared default matters — it is what they start from and what most of them will keep.

Most people will not customise

Worth knowing before investing in per-user layouts. The proportion who rearrange anything is small, and it is the same people who would have found what they needed anyway.

The effort is better spent on a shared arrangement that is right for the majority.

Different roles, different dashboards

Usually better than per-user customisation. A caseworker and a manager want genuinely different things, and that is a role difference rather than a personal preference — two well-designed shared dashboards beat everybody arranging their own badly.

Restrict who can change a shared layout

It affects everybody, so it is a change with the reach of a configuration change rather than a personal one. Somebody rearranging it to suit themselves degrades it for the whole team.

Watch what people do with it

If everybody removes the same block, it is not useful. If several add the same thing, it belongs in the shared layout. Customisation is a signal about your default, and it is one of the few pieces of honest feedback you get about a dashboard.

Worked example

An organisation runs two shared dashboards — one for caseworkers, one for managers — with customisation allowed. About one person in ten changes anything. Two blocks several people added were promoted into the shared caseworker layout, and one nobody kept was removed.

Recommendations

• Invest in the shared default, whatever else you allow.
• A dashboard per role beats per-user customisation.
• Restrict who can change shared layouts.
• Treat customisation as feedback on your default.