Role centers
Role centers in AL: how to design role-tailored home pages, add navigation menus, build cues and headlines, and set up a user onboarding checklist. It answers questions about structuring a Role Center page and its parts, with a simple code example.
Path: Development > Programming in the AL language > Pages and the user interface > Role centers · tier official · system development · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)
Overview
A Role Center is the role-tailored home page in Business Central. It combines navigation, an action bar, and a content area holding parts such as cues and headlines. The section starts with a design overview that also covers performance (page background tasks) and mobile considerations.
The other pages each cover one building block. One page shows how to use area() controls to define navigation menus, navigation bar links, and the Creation, Processing and Reporting action areas. Another covers Cues and Action tiles, built from a Cue table and a CardPart page with a cuegroup control. A third covers headlines, built on HeadlinePart pages with the Expression property. A further page covers the onboarding checklist, with guided experience items, assisted setup, and tours.
Start with Designing Role Centers for the concepts, then read the simple AL code example to see a full Role Center page with sections, embedding, and action areas. Use the menu, cue, headline and checklist pages as needed to extend it.
Key points
- Designing Role Centers covers navigation menus, action bar, content area, cues, headlines, and page background tasks, plus performance and mobile considerations (2021 release wave 1).
- Navigation is defined with area() controls: navigation menu sections, navigation bar links, and action areas for Creation, Processing and Reporting.
- Menus can group pages, reports and codeunits, using page groups and submenus.
- Cues are designed on a Cue table with FlowField or Normal fields, shown through a CardPart page with a cuegroup control; wide layout and Action tiles are supported.
- Headlines use HeadlinePart pages with fields that rotate text via the Expression property, using tags for title, payload and emphasis; they support drill-down and dynamic visibility.
- The checklist helps onboard users with guided experience items: assisted setup, manual setup, tours and spotlight tours (2021 release wave 1).
- A simple AL example shows a custom Role Center with a posted invoices section, embedded sales and service actions, and processing, creation and reporting actions.
Learn pages
- Add Menus to Role Center Navigation: Learn how to add pages, reports, and actions to Role Center navigation menus, navigation bars, and action areas in Business Central.
- Create a Role Center headline: You can provide information and insights as headlines on Role Centers.
- Creating and Customizing Cues: Get an overview of cues and action tiles and the tasks involved in customizing them on Role Centers.
- Designing Role Centers: Learn how to create user-focused home pages called role centers that boost productivity and streamline navigation.
- Get Users Started with the Checklist: Learn how to customize the checklist that users can launch from the Welcome banner.
- Simple Role Center Code Example in AL: Learn from a complete AL code example that builds a simple Role Center page and a profile that assigns the Role Center to users in Business Central.
Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.