Lobby Page Designer¶

A Lobby page provides an at-a-glance view of information in IFS Cloud based on the individual, role, or process. It contains links and shortcuts to other lobbies or pages.

	(A). Page Parameters (B). Zoom Lobby Page (C). Lobby Toolbar

(A) Page Parameters¶

Page parameters are used to configure data visualization within lobby elements. Admin users have the ability to set up page parameters at the Data Source level. Once configured, these parameters are displayed as input fields within the Page Parameter slide-out menu.

Click on the Page Parameter(A) icon to access Page Parameters menu.

Page Parameters dialog

Each parameter is specified as a value of different data types ( text, number, boolean and date). When an end user enters data in to the page parameter, input control will be shown according to the data type set for the parameter.

Example: Date picker for Date type

(B) Zoom Lobby Page¶

When a page is opened, it is initially displayed at 100% zoom. A Zoom slider(B) is available in the upper-right corner of the page, allowing you to adjust the zoom level to fit your screen. Your selected zoom preference is automatically saved in your user profile and will be applied the next time you access the page.

(C) Lobby Toolbar¶

Click on the Lobby Toolbar (C) button in the upper right corner to reveal the lobby page layout configuration toolbar.

	(a). Editing a lobby page (b). Delete Lobby Page (c). Duplicate Lobby Page (d). Page Property Configuration (e). Export Page

(a) Editing a lobby page¶

To edit a lobby page, click the Edit (a) icon in the lobby toolbar. This action opens the Lobby Page Configuration mode, where two additional panels become available: the Element Browser and the Element Group Configuration panel.

Note: A page can be protected from editing. In that case there are two options available, copy the page or unlock for editing via the Configuration dialog you open with the Configuration (Cogwheel) button.

	Element Browser Find Element (1). Add an Element Group to the Page (2). Add an Element Group Separator to the Page Element Group Configuration (3). Hide Configuration (4). Show Groups (5) Group Layout (6) Remove Element Group Re-arranging the Element placement Configuring Element Properties

Element Browser¶

The Element Browser displays all available elements, organized by their respective categories within the element repository. Elements are grouped by type—such as Image, Counter, or List—and each category displays a count indicating the number of elements it contains.

Each category can be expanded and collapsed by clicking the group title.

element_browser2 Figure 3: Element Browser

Find Element¶

The Element Browser has an option to search for all types of elements. To search for an element, type the search criteria in the search textbox. The search result will be shown instantly. The search functionality has the following search criteria:

Search for the element's name
Search for the element's title
Search for the element's keywords

Configuration Options in Element Browser¶

From the Element Browser you can do the following:

(1) Add an Element Group to the Page¶

add_group

(2) Add an Element Group Separator to the Page¶

add_sepearator

Add element to page

To add an element to the page, simply click on that element in the Element Browser.

Note: In the future it is planned to support drag and drop from the element browser, but has not yet been implemented.

add_element

Element Group Configuration¶

(3) Hide Configuration¶

Select this option to hide Element Group Configuration Panel

(4) Show Groups¶

Select this option In edit mode to visually delineate the groups on the Lobby Page with grid lines.

show_groups

(5) Group Layout¶

The layout of a group can be changed when you click the square dropdown icon next to the delete icon. In here the dropdown icon will give 3 layout options.

alignment

Layout dropdown

Layout	Description
Single Column	This is the default layout where all elements are arranged in a single column. This layout supports placing a dynamic width element at the end of the group. To allow the last element in the group to automatically expand and fill any remaining horizontal space, drag it into the Dynamic Width Element section within the group. Figure 5: Dynamic Width Element Section NOTE: Elements within this Dynamic width section will only grow in order to fill the space and it will not shrink less than its default width given to fill a given space.
Two Columns (uneven)	The lobby group will split into a narrow and wide column layout in which the elements can be seperately arranged in the narrow column and wide column. The narrow column only supports a maximum width 2 element.
Two Columns (even)	The lobby group will split into an equal width column layout in which the elements can be seperately arranged in both the columns.

A lobby page with a Two column (uneven) group layout

When a new element is added, it is automatically placed in a new group at the bottom of the page.

To reposition the element, simply drag and drop it into another group of your choice.
If the original group becomes empty, you can remove it by clicking the Delete (6) icon.

(6) Remove Element Group¶

To delete an entire element group, use the Delete (6) icon.

Re-arranging the Element placement¶

While in edit mode, hover your mouse cursor over any lobby element tile within the Element Layout Configuration Menu and your mouse cursor icon will change pointer to drag.

Use drag and drop to rearrange elements. If you want to rearrange a group with all its content, click and drag the groups header.

re_arrange

Note: In IFS Enterprise Explorer, it was possible to group elements in two dimensional groups (both horizontally and vertically). Now, in IFS Cloud, we can only arrange elements in the order we want them to appear and they will flow horizontally from left to right within the group. When the elements cannot fit within the row due to the width of the viewport, they will then line break and keep on flowing from left to right on the row below. The groups will stack vertically and be placed on top of each other.

Configuring Element Properties¶

	(W). Lobby Element Background Color (X). Element Properties (Y). Navigate to Element Designer (Z). Remove an Element

(W) Lobby Element Background Color¶

This area displays the current background color of the lobby element. You can modify the background color to match your layout or visual preferences.

(X) Element Properties¶

Clicking the Cogwheel icon will reveal Element Properties dialog where you can override some element properties only for this lobby page.

Layout Settings¶

Width and height of the element can be changed. There is an option to unify an element with the next element to show the connection.

Layout settings for a lobby element

Unify with the next element: This property can be used to show logically related elements as connected within a group.

Publisher -Subscriber Settings¶

Lobby elements within a page are now enabled with an event driven framework, which gives the capability of communicating with each other within a page.
For more details, refer Event Driven Lobby Elements section.

(Y) Navigate to Element Designer¶

If you want to change an element added to a lobby page clicking the Navigate icon next to the title will take you to the element designer with that element loaded in the designer.

(Z) Remove an Element¶

Remove a single element from the group is done by clicking the delete icon within the Element tile.

(b) Delete Lobby Page¶

To remove a lobby page, click the Delete (b) button. This action is typically restricted to administrators; however, your ability to delete a page may vary depending on your organization's access policies.

(c) Duplicate Lobby Page¶

To create a copy of the lobby page, click the Duplicate (c) button.

(d) Page Property Configuration¶

Click the Cog Wheel button in the toolbar to change the properties of a page. This opens the Page Property Configuration dialog which contains three groups.

Page Properties dialog in a lobby page

Layout: This is where you define Page title, Client Type and setting up auto refresh for you lobby.
Page Parameters: It is possible to add parameters to use as variables for the content in elements. When the user is viewing the page, he/she can use the variables to filter on e.g. Company, Site etc., see Page Parameter. You can check/uncheck the 'Show As Page Parameter' checkbox to show/hide page parameters in the page. The page parameters can be used in Sql queries, titles and texts in an element, see Element Designer.
Information: In this section you can see/modify the author of the page, define key words to make it easier to find the page in the Lobby Overview and write a text with additional information about the page. In addition you can see if the page is copied from another page. There is a link for the presentation object created for the page. Navigate to the following page Solution Manager/Security/Permission Sets/Presentation Object Grants where you can define the security settings for the page. Read more in Installation and Security. Once you have completed your configuration of a page use the Locked dropdown to protect the configuration from changes. If a page is locked for changes a warning is displayed in the header of the configuration dialog. In this warning there is a button , Edit Anyway, which you can use to continue to make configurations.

In the toolbar there is a translation button launches the translation tool. Read more about Translation.

(e) Export Page¶

Exporting a page can be done in two ways.

Full format - a full page including elements and data sources
Zip archive - the structure above but zipped

The exported page xml in a folder tree and zip contains reference id's to data sources and elements but in the full format it contains all information

Solution Sets¶

Installing IFS Cloud includes all technical components but only a subset of them are considered as active and able to use. This concept is called Solution Sets. We introduced an indication in lobby page designer mode to inform the user of the unavailability of lobby elements if inactive components are present.

When a lobby page is loaded

Lobby elements with inactive components
Lobby elements using data sources with inactive components
Lobby elements using data sources which uses views with inactive components

are not shown to the end user.

However, in the edit mode such elements will be visualized as in following image.

A lobby page with elements from inactive components in edit mode

Event Driven Lobby Elements¶

Lobby elements within a page are now enabled with an event driven framework, which gives the capability of communicating with each other within a page. Previously, page parameters were the only way to give a user input to the lobby runtime. However with this feature the user will be able to populate a lobby element using data of another lobby element within the page.

Mainly this functionality consists of two parts:

publisher
subscriber

Publisher¶

A lobby element that is capable of emitting certain event/s depending on the user interaction. Usually an event has an attached payload.

Eg: ContextChangedEvent, SubProcessSelectedEvent, RowDataEvent

Eg: A list element -> ROW_DATA (clicking on a row) 

Payload: selected row

These events are not configurable.
One publisher can publish multiple types of events depending on the element type.

Available publishers:

List
Bar Chart
Funnel Chart
Pie Chart
Matrix

Subscriber¶

A lobby element that responds to the event data sent by a publisher/s by filtering / redrawing /etc

An element can subscribe to multiple publishers /events
Self subscriptions are also possible.
Default subscription to "Page parameters dialog"

Still the priority is given to page parameters.

The lobby page is initially loaded with page parameter values provided via the dialog (and defaults). After the user clicks on a publisher, the subscribers are loaded accordingly. If a page parameter value is changed, the whole page is reset with page parameter values.

Configuration¶

This functionality is built upon the data source parameters: the placeholders defined in the lobby data sources as $PLACEHOLDER$.

Previously, these parameters were collected and supplied to the page via Page parameters dialog in runtime. With this feature, those placeholders can be filled with an event coming from a publisher element at the runtime as well.

1. Data Source Configuration¶

Publisher Datasource:

Create the datasource as required. No change to the standard process.

Subscriber Data Source:

When it comes to subscriber element, data sources can be configured using the following placeholder ($PARAMETER_NAME$). The only difference is relevant column names of the publisher element should be added as parameters in the subscriber element’s where clause.

Here is an example. Let’s assume there is a data source which shows a list of customers who speaks a given language.

Publisher Element Configuration of Data source.

Subscriber Element Configuration of Data source.

According to the above example LANG_CLIENT (alias) is the relevant publisher column name (DEFAULT_LANGUAGE can also be used). Once subscriber element is configured as above $LANG_CLIENT$ is considered as a page parameter.

User can set some default values in the page properties dialog (otherwise element is not loaded until user clicks on the relevant publisher) for the elements using it.

Note: Both SQL and Projection datasources are supported.

2. Element Configuration¶

Lobby element configuration process has not changed.

3. Lobby Page Configuration¶

Create the lobby page by adding required elements.

How to enable the publisher capability of a lobby element ?¶

Go to page edit mode.
Open element settings dialog.

Go to ‘PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBER SETTINGS’ tab.
Enable ‘Enable Publisher’ toggle in ‘Publisher’ section.

Publisher_Settings

How to subscribe to an element ?¶

Go to page edit mode.
Open element settings dialog.
Go to ‘PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBER SETTINGS’ tab.
There will be a list of available publishers and their events in the ‘Subscription’ section.
You can subscribe to events by toggling relevant toggle buttons.

How to identify whether the element is a publisher or subscriber in a lobby page at runtime ?¶

An icon is shown on top of each element if it is a publisher/ subscriber in order to identify easily. The icon deifinitions are given below:

Publisher : Element is a publisher. Clicking on the element will emit configured event.
Active Publisher : Element is currently actively emitting an event .
Active Subscriber : Element is currently actively listening to an event from a publisher.

When it comes to an active subscriber, a card is shown when the icon is clicked. This card shows the parameters sent by the publisher for this subscriber element.

Example:

Following example shows a bar chart has been defined as a publisher and there is a list element which subscribes to the bar chart.

The lobby designer should consider creating a meaningful layout for the elements in a page that are connected with these publisher-subscriber associations.