Layouts & inheritance

If you’re not on a team, this page doesn’t affect you: you either have a custom layout or the standard set.

On a team it’s layered, so that a leader can hand everyone a sensible dashboard without taking away anyone’s ability to change it.

The four steps

Karani uses the first of these that exists:

Resolution order

1. Your own saved layout — what you built in the customizer
2. A layout assigned to you — one a team leader built for you personally
3. Your team’s or organisation’s default
4. The standard set — the nine default widgets

What that means in practice

Your own choice always wins. Once you’ve saved a layout, a team default can’t override it. You won’t log in to find your dashboard rearranged.

A layout built for you beats a group-wide default. A leader can give the whole team a starting dashboard and then tailor one person’s without affecting anyone else.

They’re stored separately. Clearing one never destroys the other. If a leader clears the dashboard they built for you, you fall back to the team default — not to nothing.

An empty layout is a layout. If you hide every widget and save, Karani respects it. Silently restoring the defaults would look like the save failed.

Going back a step

Reset to Default in the customizer clears your own layout. You fall back to whatever’s next: an assigned layout, then the team default, then standard.

That’s the way to say “actually, give me what my team leader set up”.

If you lead a team

You have two tools:

• Set as default for <team> — from your own dashboard’s customizer. Applies to everyone who hasn’t customized their own.
• Build a dashboard for one person — from their row on the team dashboard.

Both are covered in Team dashboards.

Overriding someone's own layout

When you build a dashboard for someone who has already customized their own, Karani tells you and asks whether to replace it. That’s the one case where your layout wins over theirs — and it’s worth a conversation first rather than a surprise.

Per account, not per user

Layouts are saved against the account, so each of your accounts has its own dashboard. Switching accounts switches dashboards.

Troubleshooting

My dashboard changed and I didn’t change it. You probably hadn’t customized it, and your team leader set or updated a default. Open the customizer and build your own — yours will then win.

I customized it and want the team’s version back. Reset to Default.

A widget I added has disappeared. It’s likely become unavailable — a Giving by Fund widget hides itself if your giving drops to a single designation, and Expenses hides if accounting is turned off.

Reset didn’t restore the standard nine. It restored what you inherit, which on a team is the team default. That’s working as intended.