Dashboard

New feature
in Moodle 2.9!

Dashboard

Dashboard (formerly known as 'My home') is a customisable page for providing users with links to their courses and activities within them, such as unread forum posts and upcoming assignments.

• Dashboard usually has the Course overview block in the central column. Depending on the site settings for this block, categories and child courses may display under the main courses. For information about the appearance of this block within the Dashboard, see the Course overview block documentation.

• On the Dashboard, the courses in the Navigation block are expanded by default (as in the screenshot below) whereas they are collapsed by default elsewhere in Moodle.
• Users can customize their Dashboard and add and remove blocks by clicking the 'Customise this page' button (1) in the screenshot below:

Quick access to Dashboard is also available from the user menu top right of the screen once logged in:

User menu

The Navigation block includes a Dashboard link directly above or below the Site home link. Once a regular user is logged in, the My courses link will also take them to their Dashboard

Resetting Dashboard to default

If a user has customised their page and wish to revert back to the original settings, they can click the 'Reset page to default' button (2) after first clicking the 'Customise this page' button (1).

Default home page

For new installations, Dashboard is the default home page for logged in users. An administrator can change the default home page in Administration > Site administration > Appearance > Navigation.

If 'User preference' is selected as default home page, each user needs to navigate to Dashboard either via the Navigation block or the user menu and then from the Administration block click the "Make this my default home page" link. Note that this option only appears on the page that is not their current default home page. Once selected, Moodle will remember which page to present them each time they log on.

Setting the default Dashboard for new users

An administrator or manager (or other user with the capability moodle/my:configsyspages) can set which content (course overview, calendar, blocks) appears on the Dashboard for new users as follows:

1. Access Administration > Site administration > Appearance > Default Dashboard page.
2. Select the required blocks from the "Add a block" drop-down menu. Configure each block as desired.
3. Reposition blocks using the arrow icons in the block headers.

Default blocks are:

• Navigation
• Administration
• Course overview
• Private files
• Latest badges
• Calendar
• Upcoming events
• Online users

Adding a block to the Dashboard for all users

An administrator can add a new block to the Dashboard for all existing users (not only new users) as follows:

1. Turn editing on for the front page
2. Add the block to the front page
3. Edit where the block appears and set the page contexts to 'Display throughout the entire site'
4. Go to your My home page and again edit where the block appears and set 'Display on page types' to 'My home page'

Preventing users from customizing their Dashboard

By default, users can customize their Dashboard and add blocks. An admin can prevent this as follows:

1. Go to Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles
2. Edit the authenticated user role and untick the Manage Dashboard blocks capability

Dashboard capabilities

• Manage Dashboard blocks (see above)
• Configure system templates for Dashboard

In addition, all blocks which may be added to a Dashboard have a myaddinstance capability (e.g. block/comments:myaddinstance) for controlling whether a user with a particular role can add the block.

Preventing users from adding a block to their Dashboard

By default, users can add many blocks to their Dashboard. An admin can prevent them from adding a particular block, such as the Online users block, as follows:

1. Go to Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles
2. Edit the authenticated user role and untick the Add a new online users block to the Dashboard capability

Blocks not available on the Dashboard

The following blocks may not be added to a user's Dashboard (because it wouldn't make sense):

• Course completion status block
• Course/site summary block
• Self completion block