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Cookbook · Personalization

Build a personal workspace

Planner ~20 min

Almost everything in the planning view is configurable - which components are visible, where they sit, and how each one is laid out. A profile captures that arrangement so you don't rebuild it each session, and it can be shared with other users or user groups.

Before you start​

You need a roleUser roleA named bundle of user actions assigned to users and user groups. Permissions flow through roles, never directly to a user. carrying the Personalization user actionUser actionA single protected capability, such as 'edit appointment', that a role can grant. The building block of role-based access control.. Without it the save buttons stay greyed out and none of this works.

It also helps to know the two words apart before you begin, because they are easy to conflate:

  • A profileProfileA saved snapshot of a user’s planning board configuration, including the chosen layout and view options. is the whole workspaceWorkspaceThe arrangement of components a user sees in the planning view. A profile saves it, and dock panels are how it is shaped.: which components exist, where they sit, the color and theme, the planning boardPlanning boardThe main graphical scheduling surface where dispatchers drag tasks onto resources across a timeline. presets.
  • A layoutLayoutA saved arrangement of the planning board - visible resources, columns, and settings - that can be reused. is the configuration of a single component inside that profile: its columns, filters, and view.

One profile contains many layouts. You save them separately, which surprises people the first time.

1. Start from the standard profile​

Do not build on a blank canvas. Take the standard profile Dime Software ships and shape it, which saves you rebuilding things that already work.

Go to Profile → Manage, click the Default radio button of your current default profile to clear it, confirm with OK, and refresh. You are now on the standard profile with somewhere sensible to start from. See profiles.

A blank profile is flagged by an orange warning icon in the top bar. If you see it, you are on an unsaved canvas and most component buttons stay disabled until you save.

2. Arrange the components​

Every component lives in a dock panel, and the panels all behave the same way regardless of what is inside them.

Two ways to add one: drag it from the Profile menu onto the canvas, or select a stack first and then click the component, which drops it into that stack as a new tab. The selected stack is the one with the slightly lighter shade.

Where you drop decides the result. Drop on the top, bottom, left, or right edge of an existing stack and the space splits equally into a new stack. Drop over the title bar next to existing tabs and it joins that stack as another tab. A shaded preview shows which you are about to get before you release.

Remove what you do not need with the small × next to each component. Be careful not to hit the × on the far right, which closes the whole stack rather than the one component.

Then resize: hover a stack edge until the cursor changes, and drag.

3. Save the profile​

Go to Profile → Save. If this is a fresh profile you are asked for a name, whether it becomes your default, and who can see it. Decide the last one now rather than later: once the profile exists, Save writes to it silently and the dialog only comes back through Save as.

The orange warning icon disappears the moment it saves, and a batch of component buttons light up that were disabled before. That is the signal you actually have a profile rather than a scratch canvas.

4. Set a default layout per component​

Now configure each component and save its layout separately. Filter the planning board to the resource typesResource typeA logical grouping of resources, such as "excavator" or "consultant", used to organize and filter them on the planning board. you care about, pick the daily or weekly view, set the columns on your grids. Then save the layout and mark it as default, so it loads automatically next time.

See layouts for what each component can store, and create a profile for a worked example with video.

5. Set the profile-level presets​

One catch worth knowing: some settings are not on the component at all. The date range, snap interval, and start and end times of the planning board live in the profile, behind the cogwheel on the right.

That is also why they apply to every planning board and every map in the profile, not just the one you had selected. Change the range there and all boards follow.

Remember to save the profile again afterwards, since those settings are stored on it rather than on the layout.

6. Share it​

A profile can be shared with a whole user group or with everyone in the organization. This is what makes the effort worth it: build the workspace once for a team, share it, and nobody else has to repeat steps 1 to 5.

Sharing is decided in the save dialog, not on a separate screen. If you kept the profile to yourself in step 3, Profile → Save as brings the dialog back so you can save a shared copy. Members then find it under Profile → Open, and an administrator can go one step further and star it on the User Profiles tab of a user or group so it loads as their default.

Verify​

Refresh the browser. The workspace should come back exactly as you left it: same components, same theme, same board range, same filters. If a component reverts to a generic view, its layout was never saved as the default, even though the profile was.

Last updated on by Hendrik Bulens