How to Create a Headline Part in Business Central Role Center: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction to Headline Parts in Business Central Role Center

Welcome to this comprehensive guide on creating a headline part in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central’s Role Center. In today’s fast-paced business environment, having a customized and informative dashboard is crucial. The Role Center in Business Central serves as the central hub for critical business data, offering quick insights and access to important tasks.

A well-designed headline part can transform user interaction with the dashboard by highlighting key information and metrics at a glance. Whether one is a developer, a system administrator, or a user with permission to customize the Role Center, this guide provides step-by-step instructions on effectively creating and deploying headline parts to enhance the Business Central experience.

This blog covers the essentials of headline parts, the advantages of customizing them, and a detailed walkthrough on how to implement them in the Role Center. Explore how to leverage these features to streamline workflows and make data-driven decisions more efficiently.

Utilizing Headline Parts for Effective Data Visualization in Business Central

Headline parts in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central's Role Center are pivotal for providing users with real-time insights and updates pertinent to their business operations and daily activities. These headlines are designed to display critical information in a concise format, enhancing decision-making and productivity throughout the organization.

Examples of Headline Categories

My Performance: Key metrics and performance indicators specific to the user.
My Workday: Summary of daily tasks, schedules, and urgent matters.
Organizational Health: Overview of the organization's operational status and health.
Productivity Tips: Advice and strategies to enhance workplace efficiency.
Cross-Tenant Insights: Comparative performance metrics relative to industry peers.
Getting Started Information: Essential tips and guides for new users.

Important Consideration

Headlines are specifically designed for the Web client and will not be displayed on other types of clients. This ensures that the data is presented in environments where it can be most effectively managed and interacted with.

Note on Content Display

It is important to note that headline parts can only display textual content, including numbers and letters. They are not capable of showing images or other forms of media. This limitation ensures clarity and focus on textual data, which is essential for quick reading and interpretation.

By incorporating these headlines into the Role Center, users can significantly enhance their workflow efficiency and data accessibility, ultimately fostering a more informed and productive work environment.

Designing Dynamic Headlines for Business Central Role Centers

The functionality of Headline parts within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central's Role Centers is integral to enhancing user interaction and delivering critical insights efficiently. This section offers an SEO-optimized overview of the design concept and user interaction for Headline parts:

Design Concept

Page Type: Headlines must be configured on a HeadlinePart type page, exclusively designed for Role Centers (RoleCenter page type). Utilizing this setup on other page types will inhibit rendering in the client.
Field Configuration: Each field on the HeadlinePart page denotes an individual headline. These fields can derive data from expressions or fields within an underlying table, enabling tailored data presentations.
Interactivity: Leveraging the OnDrillDown trigger, headlines become interactive, allowing users to engage with them for deeper insights or to navigate to linked pages or URLs.
Dynamic Visibility: The visibility of each headline is dynamically manageable via the Visible property, facilitating the display of headlines based on their current relevance.

Field Properties

Limited Applicability: Key properties applicable to fields on a HeadlinePart page include Expression, Visible, ApplicationArea, Drilldown, and DrillDownPageID. Properties not relevant to the interface's efficiency are streamlined out.

Client Interaction

Display Cycle: The display begins with the first visible headline, which appears for 5 seconds, followed by subsequent headlines. This cycle continues, ensuring each headline is displayed sequentially before repeating the cycle.
User Controls:
- Interactive Elements: Headlines can be interacted with, enabling users to open targeted actions or linked pages.
- Pause Control: Users have the option to pause on a headline by hovering over it, which stops the automatic cycling.
- Manual Navigation: Navigation dots are provided below the headlines, allowing for manual transition between them.
- Personalization: Users are empowered to customize their Role Center to display or hide the Headline part based on personal preferences.

How to Create a HeadlinePart Page in Business Central for Effective Role Center Customization

Creating a HeadlinePart page in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central allows developers to tailor Role Centers with dynamic and interactive headlines. This SEO-optimized section outlines the steps and logic necessary to implement headline fields that enhance user engagement through effective data representation.

Step-by-Step Creation of a HeadlinePart Page

Set Page Type: Begin by creating a new page and setting its PageType property to HeadlinePart. This designation is crucial as it specifies the page's function within the Role Center environment.
Define Headline Fields:
- Field Addition: For each headline you wish to display, add a field to the page layout. The sequence of these fields in the AL code will determine their display order on the Role Center.
- Configure Expressions: Assign the Expression property for each field. This expression can pull data directly from underlying tables or be formulated to reflect calculated values, offering flexibility in the data displayed.
Incorporate Complex Data Patterns:
- Enhance headlines with more complex and flexible data patterns. This can involve using data-driven text, incorporating drill-down capabilities, and utilizing a relevance engine to adjust headline visibility based on user context or other criteria.

page 50107 RoleCenterHeadline
{
PageType = HeadlinePart;

layout
{
area(Content)
{
group(General)
{
ShowCaption = false;
field(Welcome; Welcome)
{
ApplicationArea = All;
}
field(Awesome; BusinessCentralIsAwesomeLbl)
{
ApplicationArea = All;

trigger OnDrillDown()
begin
Hyperlink('https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=867580');
end;
}
}

}
}

trigger OnOpenPage()
begin
Welcome := StrSubstNo(WelcomeLbl, UserId());
end;

var
WelcomeLbl: Label 'Welcome %1';
BusinessCentralIsAwesomeLbl: Label '<qualifier>Microsoft Learn</qualifier><payload>Headlines in <emphasize>Business Central</emphasize> are awesome!</payload>';
Welcome: Text;
}

Tag	Description
`<qualifier></qualifier>`	Specifies the title that appears above the headline. If you omit this tag, the text HEADLINE will be used by default.
`<payload></payload>`	Specifies the actual headline text.
`<emphasize></emphasize>`	Applies the style to the text.

Discover how to integrate the headline part into the Role Center page by watching this video.

Conclusion

In this blog, we explored how to effectively design and implement a HeadlinePart page in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central's Role Center. By leveraging dynamic content and interactive elements, we can greatly enhance the user experience, ensuring that essential information is not only accessible but also actionable. 😊

Looking ahead, the next installment of this series will delve into creating a CardPart page and integrating it into the Business Central Role Center. We'll cover the steps to build this component, which is crucial for displaying grouped or summarized information in a visually appealing format. For those eager to see some code examples ahead of time, be sure to check out our GitHub page. 🌐

Stay tuned for the next blog where I'll continue to enrich our Role Centers with more interactive and informative features. I look forward to sharing more insights and tips with you soon! 👋