How can we disable the new "Dashboard" Window from opening by default for new users?

[DanielRosen]

Hello! We love the new Plesk and Web Presence Builder, but the new "Dashboard" window is causing a support nightmare for us. Can we disable it from appearing by default for all new users?

Here is an explanation of the issue:

Our users are beginners who have never had a site and have difficulty with directions. This is why we chose web presence builder. In the previous version they would signup, launch web presence builder, see the video and toolbar and start creating their site. It was wonderful and simple.

Now with the new version, they signup and launch web presence builder, but instead of seeing their toolbar they are now seeing this big dashboard with external links to Google Analytics and info about a store. Because they dont see the toolbar they are clicking on the links to Google Analytics, leaving our site, getting confused and writing us for support about Google analytics and a store they wont need. They dont understand that they can just close this unnecessary dashboard window. This has happened with ALL new signups ever since upgrading to new plesk.

We would like to go back to the previous order of events: User signs up for hosting, logs into control panel, launches web presence builder and immediately sees the video and toolbar so they can start creating their site. We want to remove all distractions and support issues.

I understand that there is a checkbox in the dashboard to disable it from appearing in the future, but that doesnt help. New users wont understand that. We need this dashboard window to NOT appear by default for new users first launching the builder. We want them to be able to launch web presence builder and immediately see the instructional video and their toolbar. Nice and simple.

How can we disable the dashboard from appearing by default for all new users?

 

[IgorG]

I have checked behaviour described by you on several test Plesk 11 servers and when I create domain, go to domain's Control Panel and click Launch Web Presence Builder there I see page http://tinyurl.com/87do6u9 but do not see any Dashboard. I see Dashboard only when I click to corresponding button in menu.

 

[DanielRosen]

Hi Igor,

Thanks for the fast reply. The dashboard is indeed appearing for ALL of our customers. Here is the order of events:

Step 1 they start launch Web Presence Builder
Step 2 they choose a topic and click CREATE SITE.
Step 3 used to be their new site with the Web Presence Builder Toolbar.... But now the Toolbar is covered up by this big Dashboard that is causing support issues. The information on this dashboard is unnecessary. It's confusing new users and sending them to Google. This is happening to ALL users since the upgrade and they are all writing us confused. They are beginners. They have never had a site. They dont need to see Google Analytics info or a report about a store they dont have. They just need to see the toolbar like they did before in the old version so they can make their simple beginner site without all this confusion covering it up. Please help us.

How do we disable the Dashboard from appearing here by default?

Here attached is a screenshot of how it looks.

 

[custer]

Hi Daniel,


The behavior you're describing is not supposed to happen -- Dashboard is displayed only after a website has been published at least once, because it makes no sense to display it before publishing. However, there's a small known issue: if you publish your website, then click Start Over and create a new website in place of the old one, Dashboard will still think that website was published and it will appear after you create your new website.

Can you please provide more details about whether users get this issue after Starting Over or it happens even if a completely new customer creates a website for the first time without ever publishing it once? We need this to properly investigate the issue.

Anyway, we understand the annoying nature of this issue and we'll take a look into providing hosters with the ability to never show Dashboard to users unless they explicitly select the corresponding checkbox. Thank you.

 

[DanielRosen]

Hello Custer,

Thank you for the fast reply! Yes this dashboard is definitely opening the first time the builder is run. Yes it would be great to be able to disable it. I very much appreciate your help!

There is one more bug that I would like to report:

We are providing our specialized users with a custom topic (with prewritten text and graphics). The bug happening is that sidebars often appear in the random layout and they really mess with our content. Is it possible to disable sidebars from appearing unless a user specifically chooses to add one later? Our users are not proficient enough to know how to disable a sidebar themselves, so they end up with a terrible looking site. Im attaching a screenshot so you can see what it is doing.

Can you please tell us how to disable sidebars in our custom topic template?

Thank you!
Daniel

 

[custer]

Hi Daniel,

The aforementioned bug with Dashboard was fixed in 11.0.10, which will be out very soon. This fix should address your concerns, however we are investigating the possibility of adding a configuration parameter that can change the default status of "Show Dashboard" checkbox.

 

[custer]

Regarding the custom topic issue: when creating your website topic, there is an option to use only the design that's included in the original snapshot. This option should cover sidebars as well. If you find that this option doesn't work properly, please let me know via PM. Thank you.

 

[DanielRosen]

Thank you Custer!

 

[Drakies]

Disabling Dashboard Windows

Good day Custer

Please advise if a configuration parameter has been implemented which will disable the dashboard window from popping up? The main reason for us is that we have hidden the “shopping Cart" module and despite it being hidden in the editor, users are now made aware of this module when this dashboard window appears, which will create unnecessary confusion for our clients.

I look forward to your reply in this regard. Please let me know if you need any additional information.