Brightspot CMS User Guide

Dashboard hierarchy


Brightspot has four levels of dashboard hierarchy:

  • Global—Dashboard created at the global level. This is the default dashboard for all users who do not have a User, Role, or Site dashboard available to them.
  • Site—Dashboard created at the site level. A site dashboard is for users who are working on a particular site. This dashboard is seen by those users who do not have a Role or User dashboard available to them, but are working on a site that has a corresponding dashboard.
  • Role—Dashboard created for users at the role level. A role dashboard is for users associated with a certain role.
  • User—Dashboard created by, and for, an individual user. This dashboard takes precedence over all other levels of dashboards and is only seen by the user to whom it is applied.

Configuring dashboards in a hierarchy promotes consistency among similar users, such as those in the same role or those working on the same site.

For example, suppose a publisher operates several sites, one of which is named Holiday Merchandise, and the following dashboards have been created:

  • Configured by the Brightspot administrator:
    • global dashboard
    • A dashboard for the site Holiday Merchandise
    • A dashboard for the role Reporter
  • Sam, a reporter on the Holiday Merchandise site, configured his own (user) dashboard. He is the only user at our publisher to have done this.

Using the following diagram, you can see how these dashboards relate to each other and the users on the various sites. At the top you see the Global dashboard. At the next level are the site dashboards, which in this case show the Holiday Merchandise site and all of the Other Sites operated by this publisher. Below that are the role level dashboards that show the Reporter role and all of the other roles that users occupy at our publisher. Finally, you see Sam's dashboard and all of the other users who have not created their own dashboard.

Dashboard hierarchy examples Dashboard hierarchy examples

Using the diagram above for reference, you can see which dashboards Sam and the other users at this publisher would see:

  • Sam sees his own dashboard, regardless of which role he is using or which site he is working on. His user dashboard takes precedence over all of the other dashboards that are available.
  • Any users (besides Sam) at our publisher that have the Reporter role assigned to them see the dashboard for the Reporter role, regardless of which site they are working on.
  • All other users at our publisher that do not have the Reporter role assigned to them see the following:
    • When they are working on the Holiday Merchandise site, they see Holiday Merchandise site dashboard.
    • When they are working on any other site, they see the global dashboard.

Precedence of dashboard settings

If a setting is configured on multiple dashboards, Brightspot uses the setting with the highest level of precedence. The following table describes the setting logic when four dashboards are configured at the global, site, role, and user levels. The role in this example is the "editor" role.

Setting Global Site Role (Editor) User Setting Used
Widget layout set not set not set set user
Resources widget set not set set not set role
Upload widget set set not set not set site
Workstreams widget set not set not set not set global

Referring to the previous table—

  • Brightspot uses the Widget layout setting configured at the user level. Those users that did not configure this setting would see the global setting.
  • Because no Resources widget setting is configured at the user level, Brightspot uses the Resources widget setting at the role level. In this case, all users with the role of "editor" would see the settings specified at the role level. Those users who do not have the "editor" role would see the global setting.
  • Because no Upload widget setting is configured at the user or role levels, Brightspot uses the Upload widget at the site level. All users working on the site where this setting was configured, would see the settings specified at the site level. Users not working on that site would see the global settings.
  • Because no Workstreams widget setting is configured at the user, role, or site levels, Brightspot uses the Worksteams widget setting at the global level. All users would see this setting.

Shared dashboards and multiple roles

Editors with more than one role have access to each role’s dashboard. For example, Adam is an editor associated with the Editor and Writer roles. When opening his dashboard, he sees two tabs, each one containing the dashboard for his associated roles.

Dashboard for an editor's roles Dashboard for an editor's roles

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