Table of Contents:

Overview

This article reviews the basic features available to System Administrators when adding and editing Public and Private Dashboards. You can review these articles to better understand Public Dashboards and The Learner Experience

Add & Edit Dashboards

Both Public and Private Dashboards can be added or edited through the templates report. Admins can access the Templates report from the setup menu.

Once the Templates report loads, you can either click on the Template button in the Add New area or select an existing template from the report and choose to edit it.

Public Dashboards

The Public Dashboard Tab is used by the System Admin to set up the dashboard as seen by Users who have not yet logged in, or signed up, to access your portal. The first two options available to System Admins appear as toggles:

The toggle for Inherit Settings of Parent Department will only appear in this Public Dashboard tab if there is a Parent Department. If a Parent Department exists, the System Admin can select one for the Template being edited to inherit its settings from. With the toggle enabled, the Public Dashboard will inherit all settings of the Parent Department and prevent System Admins from making any changes to how it appears otherwise.
The toggle labeled Enable Public Dashboard will allow System Admins to choose whether or not the dashboard can be viewed by users who have not yet been authenticated by the LMS. Disabling this toggle does not affect the visibility of the Private Dashboard which is only available to users that are logged in. With this toggle disabled, users will only be presented with a login page.

If the System Admin is working on a Public Dashboard for the Template of a Parent department, or has elected to create one that does not inherit settings from another, several additional options will be available.

The drop-down menu available in each container provides the option of selecting between either a Tile or a Ribbon which we will cover in this article shortly.
The Up/Down icons allows System Admins to reorder the containers within the dashboard.
This carat will either expand or minimize the container depending on its current state.
The trash can icon will delete the container and it's contents from the dashboard.
This is the area in which the container's contents will be visible and managed from.
The Add New Container button will create an additional container below the current one.

Tile vs Ribbon Container

When adding a container to your dashboard, you have the option of choosing between a Tile or Ribbon container. A Tile container will allow you to add Standard Tiles, as well as Mercury Tiles for those organizations that have opted to add the Mercury Module for their portal. A Ribbon container allows Admins to showcase specific courses whether they be your from Featured, Pinned, or Mandatory courses, as well as those found in the Catalog, My Courses, or those to be resumed.

Tile Container Options

When opting for a Tile Container, all of the Standard and Mercury Tiles can be mixed together, with the exception of the Welcome Tile and the Billboard tiles. These two tiles can only appear individually in their own container, and System Admins will be prevented from adding additional tiles if either is selected. Further to this, these two tiles won't appear in the Add Tile(s) modal window (pictured above) if any other tiles were already added to the container.

Once you have added your Tiles to a container, you have the option of dragging and dropping them with the grip bar on the left of the tile, into the order you'd prefer. The trash can icon at the top right of each tile can be used to remove the tile from your container, and you can edit the settings for each by clicking on the Edit or pencil icon.

Tile	Options
Catalog	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Category: This drop-down menu allows System Admins to select the category of which course content is to be pulled from.
Enrollment Key	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Key Name: Text entered here should match that of the Key Name of an existing Enrollment Key. Learners that click on this tile will automatically use the Enrollment Key linked to the Key Name.
FAQs	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Number of Items: The number that appears in this field will correspond to the number that appear on the tile for Learners.
Hyperlink	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Link: The URL entered into this field will be the one Learners are forwarded to. Target: There are four options from this drop-down menu which determines how the Learner is forwarded to the URL entered in the Link field: _blank will open the page in a new browser window, leaving the page with the referring link open behind it _self loads the page within the same browser window _parent loads the page within the immediate parent of a frame where nested frames are used in a page _top causes the page to load in the full body of the page, breaking out of a frameset where applicable
Welcome	Link: The URL entered into this field will be the one Learners are forwarded to. Target: There are four options from this drop-down menu which determines how the Learner is forwarded to the URL entered in the Link field: Blank will open the page in a new browser window, leaving the page with the referring link open behind it Self loads the page within the same browser window Parent loads the page within the immediate parent of a frame where nested frames are used in a page Top causes the page to load in the full body of the page, breaking out of a frameset where applicable Background Image Display: A background image can be uploaded, with the option to have the image scaled to fill the entire space, or to repeat in a tiled format if it's not preferred. Foreground Image Display: A foreground image can be uploaded which will appear above the background image as an overlay.
Billboard	Interval: This is the time between Billboard transitions that occurs automatically if the Learner does not use the feature's built-in navigation controls. Autoplay: When enabled, this will automatically start any Video appearing in a Billboard on the Learner's Dashboard as soon as they advance to that particular item. Tags: The default setting for the Learner Interface is to only display one set of Billboards at the top of the Dashboard page, which makes the tagging function unnecessary. However, if the Admin wishes to have more than one set of Billboards appear on a Learner's Dashboard then they will need to provide Absorb with the following information: the Tag names they have added and/or used while creating their Billboards; the desired Dashboard location for their additional set of Billboards; and, which Tags to associate with each Billboard location.
Facebook	Widget HTML: This field is where you will enter in the code required for your Facebook widget to appear on the Dashboard. <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/page.php? href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fabsorblms&tabs= timeline&width=500&height=500&small_header=true&adap t_container_width=true&hide_cover= false&show_facepile=true&appId" width="500" height="500" style= "border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="yes" frameborder="0"allowTransparency= "true"></iframe> Hyperlink: https://facebook.com/absorblms Please note: When building Facebook tiles, the minimum size is 180px and the maximum is 500px.
Latest News	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Number of Items: The number that appears in this field will correspond to the number that appear on the tile for Learners.
Twitter	Widget HTML: This field is where you will enter in the code required for your Twitter widget to appear on the Dashboard.

Ribbon Container Options

If you select the Ribbon as your container type, you will be presented with only two options from the Label drop-down menu. The first is Featured Courses and the second is My Catalog:

Featured Courses will display all of your portal's courses that have been chosen to be featured as determined by the settings in each course and that are available to the general public.
My Catalog will display any courses that are available to the general public.

Private Dashboards

The Private Dashboard is seen by Users who have logged in to your portal. The layout of the page under the Private Dashboard tab and the options available there are similar to what is available on the Public Dashboard. The Private Dashboards though allow a number of additional options that only Learners that have authenticated themselves in Absorb can see. We will cover each of these, excluding those discussed above in the Public Dashboard, below. They include:

Catalog
Enrollment Key
FAQs
Hyperlink
Welcome
Billboard
Facebook
Latest News
Twitter

Tile	Options
Admin	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to the Admin user interface if they have the correct permissions to access it.
Calendar	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to their calendar.
My Courses	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Category: This drop-down menu allows System Admins to select the category of which course content is to be pulled from.
Log Off	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will log the user out of their current session.
Messages	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Number of Items: The number that appears in this field will correspond to the number that appear on the tile for Learners.
Profile	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to their Profile.
Resources	Title: This input can be used to create a customized title translation to be displayed on the tile. Name Term: This input can be used to create a customized description (name) translation to be displayed on the tile. Category: This drop-down menu allows System Admins to select the category of which course content is to be pulled from.
Resume	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to the last course they were progressing through.
Transcript	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to their Transcript within their Profile.
Leaderboards	Target: The drop-down list allows you to select a pre-existing Leaderboard from your portal to display in the tile.
Polls & Surveys	This tile does not contain any additional options for setup. It will forward the Learner to Polls & Surveys available in the portal.

Additional Resources

Features Available When Adding and Editing Dashboards