Overview
This setting controls which sections (widgets) are shown on the Dashboard – the main page a user sees right after logging in – for staff members who hold the Secretary role. In this setting’s own wording, this role is called “Employee” or “Staff”. The setting lets an institution simplify this dashboard by hiding sections that are not useful for how it works day to day, without changing the dashboard of any other role and without removing the underlying feature from the rest of the system.
Setting reference: “Select elements that you want to hide at employee’s dashboard (portal’s main page)” (Main Settings > General Settings > Dashboard Settings > Dashboard Settings & Rights).
What This Setting Does
This is a multi-choice setting. An administrator picks one or more dashboard sections from a fixed list of four, and each section that is picked disappears from the Dashboard of every user who has the Secretary role. If nothing is picked, all four sections are shown, which is the default.
The four sections that can be hidden are:
- Calendar – the calendar widget embedded on the dashboard.
- Enrollment Counters – the counter panel showing the total number of _Students_, _Groups_ (Classes), and _Teachers_.
- Quick Actions – the row of ready-made quick-action buttons together with the related enrollment-limit chart. The “Quick Actions” title and any custom buttons the institution has separately added to the dashboard are not affected by this choice and stay visible even if it is selected.
- Search Control – the quick student-search box shown on the dashboard.
Hiding a section here only removes its shortcut from the Dashboard. It does not turn the underlying feature off anywhere else – for example, hiding Search Control removes the search box from the dashboard, but staff can still search for a _Student_ from the normal _Student_ list screen.
Where It Is Used
This setting only affects the Dashboard (the portal’s main/home page) shown to users with the Secretary role. It applies:
- Immediately after a Secretary/employee user logs in, since the Dashboard is the first page shown.
- Any time such a user returns to the Dashboard/home page later in the same session.
It has no effect on any other page, report, or menu, and no effect on the dashboards of other roles (_Teacher_, _Student_, Parent, Administrator) – each of those has its own separate hide-elements setting, listed under Notes below.
Business Logic / Behavior
- Institution-wide, not per-user – the same set of hidden sections applies to every Secretary/employee user at the institution. It cannot be set differently for individual staff members.
- Display-only effect – hiding a section removes it from the dashboard view only; it does not disable, delete, or restrict the related feature elsewhere in the system.
- Fixed list of choices – only the four sections above can be picked. An additional internal option (“Birthdays”) exists in the system but is intentionally left out of the list offered to administrators, so it can never be selected through this setting.
- Quick Actions scope – selecting Quick Actions hides only the standard/system buttons and the linked enrollment-limit chart. The section title and any custom buttons configured separately for the dashboard remain visible.
- Independent of the Notice Board widget – the Secretary dashboard also has a Notice Board (timeline) section, but that is controlled by its own, separate setting. Choices made here do not change whether the Notice Board is shown.
Example(s)
Example 1: Simplifying a busy dashboard
Institute Alpha’s front-office staff mostly work from the dedicated _Student_ and _Group_ list screens rather than from dashboard shortcuts. The administrator opens this setting and selects Quick Actions and Search Control. From then on, every employee with the Secretary role sees only the Calendar and Enrollment Counters sections on their dashboard; the quick-action buttons and the search box no longer appear there, although staff can still perform those same actions from their usual menus.
Example 2: Adapting the dashboard for Higher Education
Institute Beta is a Higher Education institution whose registrar’s office does not organize learners into _Groups_ the way a school does, so the Enrollment Counters panel (_Students_ / _Groups_ / _Teachers_) is not useful to its staff. The administrator selects Enrollment Counters and Calendar to hide, leaving Search Control and Quick Actions visible. Office staff then see a shorter dashboard focused only on the search box and the quick-action buttons they use every day.
When to Use
When to Enable (select one or more sections to hide)
- The Secretary/employee dashboard feels crowded or shows sections staff rarely use.
- A specific section – most often Enrollment Counters, since it centers on the _Group_ (Class) count – does not match how the institution is organized. This is common in Higher Education institutions (see the note below).
- The institution prefers staff to work from dedicated menus for search, calendar, and quick actions, and wants a shorter landing page.
When to Disable (leave every choice cleared)
- The institution wants staff to have one-click access to search, quick actions, the enrollment counters, and the calendar as soon as they log in.
- Staff are new to the system and benefit from having these shortcuts visible on the dashboard while they learn where things are.
- There is no particular reason to hide any section, and the full default dashboard is preferred. This is the more common choice in K-12 schools (see the note below).
K-12 Mode and Higher Education Mode
Classter does not have one single switch named “K-12 Mode” or “Higher Education Mode” – the behavior described in this article comes only from which sections are selected in this one setting. In practice, though, the two states of this setting are often associated with the two types of institution:
- Higher Education Mode (one or more sections selected here) – universities and colleges often hide sections such as Enrollment Counters, since their office staff does not track _Groups_ the same way a school does, and they may prefer a shorter, task-focused dashboard.
- K-12 Mode (this setting left empty and disabled) – schools more often keep the full dashboard, since _Groups_ (Classes), enrollment counts, the calendar, and quick actions map closely onto how a school’s front office works day to day.
This is a common usage pattern, not a fixed rule. Any institution, regardless of type, can choose either state to suit its own way of working.
Notes
Related settings (same menu path, Settings > Core Settings > Dashboard Settings > Dashboard Settings & Rights, unless noted otherwise):
- “Select elements that you want to hide at Teacher’s dashboard (portal’s main page)”- the equivalent setting for the _Teacher_ role’s dashboard.
- “Select elements that you want to hide at Student’s dashboard (portal’s main page)” – the equivalent setting for the _Student_ role’s dashboard.
- “Select elements that you want to hide at Parent’s dashboard (portal’s main page)” – the equivalent setting for the Parent role’s dashboard.
- The Notice Board (timeline) visibility setting – a separate setting that controls the Notice Board section on the same Secretary dashboard. It is independent of Hide Dashboard Page Elements Secretary portal.
- “Enable custom message for staff on dashboard”, together with its companion message-text setting – controls a separate announcement banner shown on the same dashboard, independent of this setting.
There is no equivalent hide-elements setting for the Administrator/Owner dashboard – that dashboard always shows all of its sections.
Pre-requisites: none beyond having administrator access to the Settings area. No other field or setting has to be configured first, and the four choices can be selected independently of one another.
Assumption flagged: the K-12/Higher Education association described above reflects a common usage pattern inferred from the setting’s purpose and from how the two types of institution typically work. It is not a confirmed, built-in system rule enforced by Classter itself.
