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Socialtext Dashboard

Socialtext Dashboard is a personal start page that helps you pay attention to the things you care about -- colleagues working on your projects, updates to your blogs and wikis, tasks, calendars, news updates, and more. You can personalize your Dashboard with bits of content and tools, which are called "widgets". You can move, remove, or minimize these widgets, and you add other widgets with the ADD CONTENT button.

You can always get to your Personal Dashboard by clicking on Home.

Welcome!

(Note: the following feature is only available if Socialtext People is enabled. Socialtext People is an optional feature.)

When you first log on to Socialtext you are welcomed with the following invitation to update your profile:

You can click on the words your profile or click Profile in the log in and setup menu . This invitation will remain on your Dashboard until you provide:

first name
last name
at least one item of contact information (e.g. a phone number or an instant messaging alias)

Once you provide this, you will see your name in the Welcome message:

If you have not provided all of the items noted above then the message will remain.

Visit Profile to view other items of information about yourself you can add, and how to upload a photo.

Your First Widgets

The following are the widgets that come pre-configured on your Personal Dashboard.

Recent Conversations
Workspaces
Wiki Page
Tags for Workspace

Recent Conversations Widget

The Recent Conversations widget gives you several ways of tracking what your colleagues are working on. This widget has three tabs:

My Conversations
My Colleagues
All Changes

Each tab gives you a different perspective on recent activity. Each tab contains clickable links that let you navigate to the content. If Socialtext People is enabled, you can also navigate to a profile of each person. You can also view the information via RSS . To configure how may results you would like the widget to display, see Configuration .

My Conversations

( configured to show 5 results )

My Conversations shows updates to pages you care about. This tab shows you when someone edits or comments on a page that you have edited, commented on, or watched. Each feed entry shows:

the person who did the edit
the page the person edited
the workspace where the page resides
when the page was edited.

The information in the entry consists of links to the corresponding items in the entry.

My Colleagues

( configured to show 5 results )

My Colleagues shows updates from people that you have chosen to follow. Using Socialtext People (an optional feature), you can subscribe to updates from your colleagues -- people you work closely with, people you find informative, people you find interesting, or people who help connect you to other people and groups in your organization. To add a person to this list, you need to choose to follow this person . Go to the People Directory , using the People button in your Navigation Menu , click on their picture or name, go to their profile, and click on the Follow this person button.

All Changes

( configured to show 5 results )

This feed shows a snapshot of any page that was changed within your workspaces, with the most recent page first. Each feed item contains:

the page link to the changed page
a snapshot of the current version of the page
who changed the page
the time and date when change was made.

Links

All items within these feeds contain links that will take you to the page, the workspace, or the person associated with the feed item. Clicking on these links will pop up a new web browser window containing the workspace page (for a page link), the workspace homepage (for a workspace link), or the person's profile (for a person).

Note: if you do not have Socialtext People enabled, you will not be able to click on a person's name.

Configuration

When you click the wrench icon in the widget toolbar, you see:

Choose the number of items you would like displayed in each list by clicking on the drop-down arrow. The default number is '10'.

View RSS Feed

The information on the My Conversations, My Colleagues, or All Changes can be viewed as an RSS feed. For more information on how to use an RSS feed, visit RSS Tutorial. The RSS Feed link is located near the bottom of the widget.

Workspaces Widget

This widget displays all the workspaces where you are a member. You can see your complete list by navigating to the Workspaces Page .

Each workspace title is linked to the homepage of the workspace. Click to go there.

Click the (new page) link beside the workspace title and a new browser window will pop up displaying an 'Untitled Page' in that workspace ready for editing.

views refers to the number of times pages within the workspace have been viewed by users in the last month.

changes refers to the number of additions or edits that have been made (since workspace creation) within the workspace in the last month.

Wiki Page Widget

This widget displays a snapshot of one wiki page on your dashboard. When you first log on, will see two such Wiki Page widgets.

Default Wiki Pages

One of them is a page with information about Learning Socialtext .

You can use the Wiki Page widget for for a quick at-a-glance view of useful pages that contain: Status tracking (for projects), a document you’re working on with a deadline, a “to do list” page, or a personal notepad. You can add as many Wiki Page widgets to your dashboard as you like. Experiment and enjoy.

Configuring Wiki Page Widget

Configure View	Loaded View

Click the wrench icon to configure the Wiki Page Widget.

In Workspace, type the workspace title, the central page of your workspace. As you type, a box containing titles of your workspaces that match what you are typing appears. You can click on any of the workspace titles displayed to load it into the Workspace field or continue typing. To determine the workspace title, click Workspaces in the Navigation Menu for a list of your workspaces by name and title.
In Page, type the title of the page you wish to see. As you type, a box containing titles of pages within the workspace that match what you are typing appears. You can click on any of the page titles displayed to load it into the Page field or continue typing.
Click the Save button.

The widget now displays this page and the widget title bar displays the page title. Now that the page is loaded, you have links to edit the page, view the page as it appears in the workspace (full-screen mode), or go to the home page of the workspace. When you click the link to the homepage or the View link, a new browser window pops up containing the page requested.

If the page you requested does not appear within the workspace, you will receive the following message:

You can either try to re-configure the widget using the wrench icon, or create a new page by clicking the here link.

If you do not have access to the workspace you requested, you will recieve the following message:

Editing a Wiki Page Widget

If you wish to edit the page, click the Edit link and the page will pop up in a new browser window. Edit as you normally would. When you have saved the page, return to your Wiki Page widget. You will see the following message:

Click on the link to reload your page.

Note: If you do not have editing privileges to the page, the Edit link will not be displayed.

Creating a new page in your workspace with a Wiki Page Widget

You can also create a new page in your workspace with the Wiki Page widget. Click the wrench icon to display the Configure view. Type in the workspace name (as described above) and for the Page field, type the name of the new page you wish to create. The following message will appear in your widget:

When you click on the here link, a new browser window will appear displaying the new page ready for editing.

When you are finished, you will see the reload message. Click to reload and your new page now appears in the Wiki Page widget.

Workspace Tags Widget

You can display all the tags within a workspace with this widget. For an example of how to use this widget, it is configured to show tags in Socialtext Documentation . You can point this widget at one of your organization's workspaces to show a tag cloud for that workspace.

Widget	Configure

By clicking the wrench icon, you can change the workspace by clicking the drop-down arrow. You can load any workspace of which you are a member, as well as Socialtext Documentation.

The size of the tag visualizes the number of items with the tag. You can click on on any of the tag titles and it will pop up a new browser window with a list of all the pages that have the tag.

More Socialtext Widgets

All People Tags Widget

This widget displays all the tags used for People within your workspaces. The size of the tag indicates the number of items with the tag. Click on a tag to view all the people who are associated with this tag. Note: you must have Socialtext People enabled to use this widget.

RSS Viewer Widget

You can load any RSS Feed on the web into this widget and configure how it is displayed. By default, the Socialtext Blog is loaded.

Default View	Configure View

Type (or cut and paste from another browser window title bar) the hyperlink of the feed you wish to display.

Items Displayed refers to the number of RSS Feed items you wish to display in the widget at a time. Choose by clicking the drop-down arrow.

Maximum Description Characters refers to how many characters (letters, numbers, spaces, etc.) you will allow in each item of the RSS feed. Choose by clicking the drop-down arrow.

For more information on RSS capability within Socialtext visit: RSS Tutorial.

Third-party Widgets

Third Party Widgets are widgets developed outside Socialtext but made available to you for your homepage. Visit Third Party Widgets for such items as MapQuest , Wikipedia , Flickr , and more!

Widget Set-up

You can configure your dashboard to make it more personal and useful in meeting your needs. Actions you can take include adding, removing, configuring and moving content widgets.

Adding Widgets

You can populate your dashboard with an assortment of widgets from the Widget Gallery by clicking the ADD CONTENT button.

Once in the Widget Gallery, simply click on the widget you wish to install and it will appear in your dashboard. Keep in mind you can have more than one instance of any widget. For example, if you would like to have instant access to three pages in your workspaces, add three Wiki Pages to your dashboard.

Widget Gallery

There are two categories of widgets available: ones created by Socialtext, and those created by a third party. Click on one of the links below to find more information about a particular widget.

Other Widgets
Socialtext supports the widget standard used in the iGoogle personal page. This means that you can use a wealth of widgets that are available on the internet. Socialtext has built in access to a number of handy widgets. And you will soon be able to add your favorite widgets, or even make your own.

Moving Widgets

You can move a widget by placing your cursor in the Title Bar at the top of the widget and while holding down your cursor, dragging the widget to the column and position you want it to appear. The dashboard page is based on a 3-column grid and widgets are of uniform width, so any widget can be placed in any column. Currently, they align towards the top of the widget space so you cannot attach a widget along the bottom of the space.

Configuring Widgets

You can change the contents and in some cases the way content appears by clicking on the wrench icon of widgets. Only widgets that can be configured will have this icon. It is located on the Title Bar at the top of the widget. Upon clicking the wrench icon you will be able to make changes to the widget. Click Save once you are done configuring the widget. For more information on configuring widgets, visit individual widgets in the lists within Widget Gallery .

Closing Widgets

You can close widgets without deleting them by clicking on the horizontal bar icon that appears in the title bar at the top of the widget. Clicking this will close the widget so you can no longer see the content but the widget title bar will remain on your dashboard.

Removing Widgets

To remove a widget, click on the "X" control in the right hand corner of the widget title bar. The widget will be deleted from your page. If you want to re-add it, you can go to the Widget Gallery using the ADD CONTENT Button near the top right corner of your page and click on the name of the widget to add it back to your page.

Touring your Dashboard

Besides your Personal Dashboard , your Navigation Menu provides links to People and Workspaces. For more information, click on the links above.

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