Enhance Templates to Improve Online Composition User Experience

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Design Studio provides Generic Analysis and Online Composition templates. These templates is a good starting point for Online Composition scenarios. There are many enhancements that can be done to improved Online Composition user experience. This is what my blog is about.






Run Time Enhancements

To begin with, we need to give preview page of Online Composition a facelift. You probably noticed that tiles change size to fit into available space on the screen. Most of the time they are either too big or too small and look ugly.



I changed preview page of Online Composition template to look more like a Fiori Launchpad. Tiles are fixed in size which makes titles fit better and easier to read. Scroll bars are added if tiles do not fit into available space.



Another problem with Online Composition template is that there is not enough room on a page. Seriously, how many charts and tables you can fit into one page without compromising presentation quality. Maybe, maximum of 4 to 6.



I duplicated composition drop area and organized them into 12 pages of pagebook. Such a way users have more space to organize their charts and tables.









I made also a number of minor enhancements to Online Composition look:

1. Removed border around fragments


2. Properly aligned tables fragments


3. Changed table fragments headers color to fit dashboard color scheme


4. Changed size and color of Back to Overview toolbar button

Design Time Enhancements

User interface for working with fragments is overcomplicated by folder selection. Templates do not need to be so generic to work with any folder, but rather limited one folder that corresponds to application area. In my example, such folder is Flight.

Besides of for Online Composition scenarios Generic Analysis template does not need to be so generic and provide a choice of data source, but rather limited to application specific data source. In my example, SFLIGHT Query.

Here is a list of changes I made:

1. Data Source Browser selection removed


2. Folder selector removed


3. Create New Smart Object dialog is replaced with Dashboard Fragment Maintenance dialog (similar to Bookmark Maintenance dialog)


4. Fragment deletion functionality added (not need to have admin to delete fragment in CMC)


5. Smart Object are referenced as Dashboard Fragments (makes more sense for users)


6. Added Information functionality (to investigate a source of fragment data selection, filters)

Templates before:





Templates after:









Modified Generic Analysis and Online Composition templates can be downloaded here:

Flight.zip

Flight Dashboards.zip