End User Access To Document Management Dashboard

[Phil Russell]

My use case is that I need to provide the document management library features to end users who are not administrators. The feature set I have in mind is basically the Documents dashboard. In general, my end users do not have access to the dashboard.

So I'm looking for a way to make the Documents dashboard available on a page. It would be great if there were a shortcode for this, something like [WPDocumentRevisionsDashboard] that you could just place onto a page.

As a workaround I have locked down my dashboard severely. In order to do so I had to create my own user role and then use the User Role Editor plugin to turn off various admin menu elements, using lots of trial and error to reduce to the few that I allow users to see. But the problem is the look and feel of the dashboard UI is vey different from the other blog pages, so the user experience isn't as smooth as I would like.

So does anyone know how to expose dashboard panels on pages? If there isn't a way to do this, would it be possible for the developers of WP Document Revisions to create a shortcode that could be used to place the document management dashboard on a page?

Thanks,

Phil Russell

 

From: "Benjamin J. Balter" <b...@balter.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 8:26 PM
To: Philip Russell <ph...@philrussell.us>
Subject: Re: WP Document Revisions: End User Dashboard Access

Phil -

Thanks for reaching out. Could I trouble you to e-mail your question to wp-documen...@googlegroups.com?

…

Thanks,

- Ben

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http://ben.balter.com

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Phil Russell <ph...@philrussell.us> wrote:

Hi, Ben,

I'm just getting started with your WP Document Revisions plugin. I'd like to create a page that contains the document administration dashboard. I would like for non-admin users, who don't have access to the dashboard, to have access to it. I tried using the [documents] shortcode but it only provides a simple document list, not the full features of the dashboard. I also tried putting the dashboard in an iframe, but it pops itself out of the iframe and tries to go back to the full dashboard, resulting in a "You do not have sufficient permissions" error message.

How can I present the document management dashboard in a page that can be used by all of my users? Is there a shortcode for this?

Thanks,

Phil Russell

 

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[Benjamin J. Balter]

What do you mean exactly by dashboard panels or pages? Could you send a screenshot?

If you're referring to the documents list (e.g. edit.php), I would do it exactly the way you are describing (although the Members plugin may be slightly less hassle). Documents have their own capabilities, so it should not be too difficult to do. 

You cannot expose admin pages on the front-end without capability checks, however you could recreate the experience. Linking to the document index ( `/documents` ), and possibly throwing a faceted search on top of that, or using the `documents` shortcode may point you in the right direction.

If you want to template the solution yourself, the global `get_documents` function should help.

- Ben

[Phil Russell]

Yes, the documents list. My workaround seems to be working OK so I probably won't spend any more time on it. However, for future releases, I do think all of the document management functionality should be available to end users who don't have dashboard access. A simple shortcode that presents a documents list that looks and works just like the dashboard version would be the best way, IMO.

Phil Russell