Navigation

Your Dashboard

Overview

You can change certain aspects of your dashboard, namely the user-specific information, but a lot of what you see is static to allow you to quickly access other parts of Folioz.

the full dashboard

Your homepage is your dashboard from which you can access a number of areas in Mahara conveniently.

  1. Navigation: Use the Main menu navigation icon  to navigate to other areas of your portfolio.

    Administrators and staff who have access to the administration area, see the Administration menu navigation icon  in addition to the main menu navigation so they can navigate within the administration area.

  2. User navigation: Click the User menu navigation icon  to reach your account settings, inbox, and logout link, or click your profile picture to be taken to your profile page.

  3. SearchSearch for users who have an account to view their profile page and check which pages they have made accessible to you. If your site has fulltext search available, you can search for anything on the site using this search box.

    In the User search box you can most often search for users’ display name. Depending on the settings that the site administrator made, you may also be able to search for users’ real name and username. If the site administrator allowed users to hide their real name, you can do so in your general account options.

    To provide you with the most relevant search results, you automatically search only for users within your own institution, but can choose to search for everyone on your Mahara installation on the “Find people” search page you are taken to.

    If the site administrator turned on exact user search, you need to provide the correct display name or real name in order to find another user.

  4. Quick links: These quick links take you directly to certain areas of Mahara.

  5. User-specific information: You can customise this area on your dashboard to put blocks there that you want to see every time you log in.

  6. Edit dashboard: The Edit dashboard button allows you to jump directly into the edit screen for your dashboard without having to go to Portfolio → Pages first.

    You cannot add a skin to your dashboard page.

  7. Personal information: This sidebar block contains static and dynamic information:

    • Your name is linked to your profile page.
    • Your profile picture is linked to your profile pictures page for easy uploading of new profile pictures.
    • If you are a member of any groups, they are displayed here.
    • Pending friend requests and group invitations are displayed.
    • If you tagged artefacts or pages with the tag “profile”, a link to them is placed here.
  8. Online users: If this sidebar block is enabled, you see users who have been logged in during the last 10 minutes. Depending on the settings for your institution that the administrator chose, you may see all users, only users from your institution(s) or no users at all.

  9. Profile completion: You see this sidebar block if your site or institution administrators turned on the profile completion functionality.

  10. Links and resources: List of links to websites or documents that are visible to all logged-in users or the public.

Main menu navigation

The main menu is visible to all users and allows everyone to navigate to their content, portfolios, and groups.

Main menu navigation

The main menu is the same for everyone

  1. Click the Main menu navigation icon  to see a drop-down menu with the available options.
  2. Click one of the options to reach them or
  3. Click the Arrow down icon  to reach the second level navigation. You can then click the Arrow up icon to close the second level navigation.

User menu navigation

The user menu is visible to all users. It allows you to access your account settings, inbox, and profile easily.

User menu navigation

The user menu is available to all users

  1. Click your profile picture to be taken to your profile page.

  2. Click the Arrow down icon  in the user menu to see additional options.

  3. Your name: Your name is displayed to indicate who is logged in esp. when viewing portfolio pages where the profile block is not visible. You can click on it to go to your profile page.

    If an administrator masquerades as another user, this name helps to check quickly, in which account actions are undertaken.

  4. Settings: Top level navigation item that gives you access to more options:

    • Settings: This link gives you access to your account settings and notifications
    • Notifications: Change your notification preferences.
    • Apps: See which apps you have connected to your account.
  5. Inbox: Go to your Mahara inbox to check for new messages. When you have unread messages, the counter displays the number of unread messages.

  6. Logout: Link to log out of your current session.

  7. Click the Arrow down icon  to reach the second level navigation. You can then click the Arrow up icon  to close the second level navigation.

User-specific information

The default dashboard includes the following blocks:

These blocks are filled with content once you start using Folioz and create pages, receive messages from other users, have access to others’ portfolio pages and use the forums for discussions. You can customize these blocks to your liking by editing your dashboard. Click the Edit dashboard button directly on your dashboard or go to Portfolio in the navigation menu, click the Edit button  next to the dashboard page and change the blocks like you would change them on any page in Folioz.

Refer to the page editor for more information on adding and removing blocks from a page.

Your profile page

Your profile page is not visible to other users on Folioz by default except for those in the same institutional space. You can also make it visible to anybody on the Internet.

Per default only the following information is put onto your profile page:

  • Your display name (or real name if you do not have a display name)
  • Your pages that are visible to the person viewing your profile page
  • Your groups
  • Your wall
  • Your friends

We advise you not to use your profile page as your portfolio because you cannot control who can look at the information you make available on your profile. At minimum it is everybody in your institution or who has an account on Folioz. At maximum it can be everybody online. Always remember to think about your own personal security before releasing contact information on a publicly available page or even just for other Folioz users.

Once you have made your profile page or any portfolio page public, Google and other search engines can index and cache it. Even if you take the public access away at some point, the cached version may still be available online. Pages that are made available via a secret URL are not found by search engines unless you link to them from another page.

Use regular pages to create your portfolio and your profile page as a business card or brief introduction to you without disclosing lots of details.

You can edit your profile page like any other page. You can find more information about editing a page in the page editor.