Configuring User Defaults
- Ada Trajer
User personalization
Apliqo UX allows users to store various personal preferences which control the user experience. User preferences are stored in cubes in the ContentStore instance.
Cubes:
}APQ UX User Preference : this cube stores user preferences such as display language, hompage, whether to display the favorites menu bar drawer, number & date format, ...
}APQ UX User Favorite : users have the ability to mark screens as favorites, this cube stores the selections.
}APQ UX Settings Service UserPreference : users have the ability to override the global default members with their own personal preference.
General user preferences
The }APQ UX User Preference cube stores user preferences such as display language, hompage, whether to display the favorites menu bar drawer. The cube also allows for storage of personal preferences for data and number format which is a planned enhancement. The cube may be enhanced in the future to allow for storage of additional preferences.
» Front end in Apliqo UX
Currently via the front end built-in support for user preferences is very limited to language preference.
However, it is very straightforward to built a interface to the }APQ UX User Preference cube and define it as an admin app. As per the following example.
Although cell security can be used to limit the ability to write to only their own user. If displaying the preferences cube to users it is suggested to put the }Clients dimension on columns with the subset "Me" selected and the measure dimension on rows.
Note: that currently only Language and HomePageSelection are supported by the Apliqo UX front end.
Note: that default user preferences are stored against the "Admin" user account. If a user does not have a preference entered against their ID in the }Clients dimension then the setting of the Admin user will be used.
» Back end in ContentStore
An admin user can also edit user preferences directly in the cube viewer.
Favorites
The }APQ UX User Favorite cube stores favorite app/view selections per user which is displayed in a separate Favorites menu.
» Front end in Apliqo UX
Currently via the front end built-in support for user preferences is very limited to language preference.
The Favorites menu gives the ability to add the current screen to the favorites collection or to navigate directly to any screen already added as a favorite.
When on a screen which is already part of the favorites collection the active screen is highlighted in the dropdown and the "Add to Favorites" option is replaced with "Delete from
Favorites."
» Back end in ContentStore
Favorites are marked by writing a 1 against the "IsFavorite" measure. The favorites collection by user is generated by a zero-supressed view / MDX statement.
An admin user can also edit favorites directly in the cube viewer.
Personal settings service defaults
Once global default member defaults have been defined it is also possible for users to define their own personal preferences and override the global defaults.
» Front end in Apliqo UX
The "User Default Settings" menu option under the user name opens a dialog which provides end users with the ability to edit their default member preferences. The dialog is just reading and writing data from the }APQ UX Settings Service UserPreference cube.
In the example below the default value for the "FIN Currency" dimension a value of "USD" has been set for the user.
» Back end in ContentStore
Individual user default member settings are stored in the cube }APQ UX Settings Service UserPreference which has the same dimensions and structure as }APQ UX Settings Service Dimensions with the addition of the }Clients dimension.
All values from }APQ UX Settings Service Dimensions are read into }APQ UX Settings Service UserPreference against the measure "GlobalDefault". The user has the opportunity to set a personal default with the "DefaultOverride" measure. The Default_Member in use will default back to the global default if no personal preference is entered.
As can be see in the example below the value of "USD" for the user's individual preference has been written to the cube against "DefaultOverride". "USD" will now be used as the settings service default value for this user although the global default value is "CHF".
Global settings service defaults
There is a 2-step process for defining the default member values for the settings service. Global default values are stored in the cube }APQ UX Settings Service Dimensions which can be maintained by members of APQ Admin or ADMIN.
This cube can be automatically populated by the instance metadata syncing service. Or for reporting instances with only a few dimensions where setting default members is relevant can just as easily be configured manually by an administrator.