Congratulations, you’ve been invited to join the 3DEXPERIENCE platform! Your unique login grants you secure access to a cloud-based environment designed to help ensure the success of your business by centralizing and managing its files, tools, and people. This blog will explore your top five most used User Interface elements as you move around the platform.

Users invited to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform are assigned roles that grant them access to specific sets of apps associated with these roles. Apps are the tools and programs you need to conduct, monitor and execute your job. The roles designated to a user will follow them to the next device they use to log in.

Dashboards

Upon initial login, the platform will open to a “My First Dashboard” page. A dashboard organizes your tabs across the top of the page. In turn, these tabs allow you to organize your apps in a tiled fashion very similar to how you may layout your smartphone’s weather, calendar, and email widgets across multiple swipe screens. Dashboards and tabs are designed by individual users to help them boost focus and efficiency for their specific job function.

To create your own dashboard, select the Dashboard List icon. A panel will expand from the left and make visible a list of dashboards you’ve previously created or have been previously invited. Select the “Add Dashboard” icon, enter a name, and then Create. Selecting your Dashboard List icon again will minimize this left panel to allow you maximum real estate for Apps.

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Tabs

A newly created Dashboard will welcome you to a starkly empty tab named “New Tab.” The down arrow menu next to the name of the tab will allow you to rename this tab to something intuitive, like “Files” because you may want to arrange apps for easy document status monitoring. Use the plus (+) at the end of your list of tabs at the top to add more tabs. For example, your next tab may be named xDesign because that tab will be exclusively for the browser-based, parametric modeling widget.

In the event you’ve added more tabs than your browser is wide or the browser becomes victim to a lower resolution display, it is easy to navigate your tabs via the Tab List in the top right corner of the dashboard.

Apps Tray

To populate your tabs with the necessary tools, access your app tray by clicking the Compass in the top left. There are three categories to access and sort your apps: My Roles, My Favorite Apps, and My Apps.

• My Roles: This is the list of roles granted to your current log-in. Selecting a role will display the apps associated with that role.
• My Favorite Apps: Initially empty, you can drag and drop your most frequently used apps to this exclusive list. You can remove an app from the My Favorite Apps section by dragging it to the trashcan in the top right corner of this list
• My Apps: This section compiles all of the apps from your currently granted roles and lists them numerically then alphabetically.

The Search function at the top of your app tray can be used to find a role or app across all three sections.

The two most used types of apps function either as widgets exclusively in the browser, or the app needs to be installed on the client machine. If there is a square with an arrow in the top right, this indicates that the tool is exclusively used as a widget in your browser and no local installation is necessary. The presence of a down-arrow in the lower right of the app indicates this app will require a local installation. This down-arrow will also indicate whether any updates are pending or required due to recent platform updates. For stability reasons, it is strongly encouraged to launch these installed products from this list in the Compass.

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Widgets

To use an app with a square and arrow in the top right corner of the icon, you must (left click + drag) it onto a tab. This will create the widget necessary to use that specific app. You may need to toggle your tab setting (down arrow next to the tab name) from Fit to Scroll to allow for tiling multiple widgets onto a single tab.

In the example below, three widgets have been arranged in the files tab: 3DSpace, 3DPlay, and Collaborative Lifecycle. The names of the apps being referenced are in the top left of the widget footprint. After arranging the widgets, the tab setting was set to Fit so the widgets will expand/shrink as the browser window adjusts. Nearly all widgets are designed for selections to be dragged from one widget to the next. A file in the 3DSpace widget can be previewed by dragging it into the 3DPlay widget. To review the released status of the file, simply drag it into the Collaborative Lifecycle Widget

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Notifications

As you and your colleagues coexist and collaborate in your 3DEXPERIENCE platform tenant, you might be tagged in a post, assigned a task, or even granted roles. These tagging events will be brought to your attention and collected in the 3DNotification Center bell in the top right corner next to your name and avatar. Now you will always be in the loop! Clicking on a notification will open the location of that specific tagging event in a window overlaid over your entire dashboard (notice the hazy names of the tabs). Click on the X (circled in orange below) to close this overlaid window.

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Becoming comfortable with these five most used user interface elements will help you confidently navigate and execute any job function with the powerful tools available on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform.

For a more in-depth look at the interface and tools available, check out our on-demand webinar, “What to Do When You’ve Been Invited to a 3DEXPERIENCE Project”