To Dashboard or Not

The Dashboard

As stated, the Dashboard is a special Confluence Entity; so You might wonder If You want to use the Dashboard at all, or use a Page instead, there are not so many good reasons for the first, as (in my opinion) using a page has most benefits.

It is not part of a space

The Dashboard has no children as pages, blogpost or similar, all these are in spaces below the Dashboard

It is changed via partly Wiki, partly scripting

The Dashboard can only be changed via Confluence Administration -> Configuration -> Look And Feel -> Layouts - Global Layout. Refer to Global Layout

 Is the Default landing page, and still - not always....

Above, it is claimed that "Is the Default landing page, and still - not always...." , this is why:

When user lands on the Confluence URL root, like http://www.mysite.dk/ or http://www.mysite.dk/confluence/ they are redirected to the Space determined in Confluence Administration -> Configuration -> General Configuration (Site Homepage):

Whereas, when a user in Confluence click on the "Dashboard" in the Breadcrums:

they are redirected to the relative URL /dashboard.action , displaying the Dashboard, nomatter what is set in the General Configuration.

This is for me not logical, and for the developer someting to take care of.

Not using the Dashboard

If You decide not to use the Dashboard, some steps can achive this:

• Create a page somewhere as the Landing page (Refer to Placing Resources)
  
  
• Redirect users from the dashboard to the page, using 
  
  
  • A Trafficmanager / Firewall / Web proxy with URL rewrite capabilities
    
    
  • Using a plugin like the Customware Visability plugin to redirect from the Dashboard to the page by either placing the redirect in the Global Layout or in the Welcome Message