Part 0 · Getting started with Symbifox

My desk, Dashboard and Progress

Build a multi-pane desk, read the unified dashboard, follow the progress of client mandates, and consult the standard spreadsheet dashboards.

Symbifox 18.0 (September 2026 catalogue) · Modules: Multi-panel desks, dashboard, Step-by-Step client progress · Base applications: Spreadsheet dashboard · Revised 2026-09-12

Four menus of the main bar let you see your day and your organization at a glance. Mon bureau (my desk) builds screens with several panes, specific to each person. Tableau de bord (dashboard) brings together on one page the figures of invoicing, hosting, knowledge and privacy. Progression (progress) follows, mandate by mandate, how client engagements are advancing and the hours consumed. Dashboards gives access to the spreadsheet dashboards that ship with the standard applications. This chapter is for the whole team for the first two, and above all for mandate leads for the third.

Overview#

A desk is a named layout that shows several Symbifox screens side by side: your activities, your tasks, your mailbox, your calendar. Each pane of the desk points to an existing screen and keeps its own search bar, view switcher and favourites. You create as many desks as you have contexts (the morning, support, a project), each with its name, its layout and, if you wish, a keyboard shortcut or a time slot. Desks are personal: a colleague's desks do not show in your list.

The Tableau de bord is not the home page: that one is described in Signing in and finding your way. It completes the home page with figure tiles: revenue of the last twelve months, vendor bills to pay, bank reconciliation, drafts to validate, then, depending on the modules installed, the state of hosting, of knowledge matrices and of privacy consents. Other modules graft their own cards onto it.

Progression builds on project stages: each numbered stage becomes a step in a linear progression. The internal page shows all current mandates, with the stage reached, the hours consumed against the budget and the next deadline. The client, for their part, sees the same progression on the portal, with the instruction for the stage they have reached.

The standard Dashboards come from Odoo: prebuilt spreadsheets, grouped by application, that you consult on screen. On the demo, the viewer files them under Sales, Finance and Services, and the configuration defines seven groups: Sales, Finance, Logistics, Services, Marketing, Website and Human Resources.

Configuration#

Access and permissions#

The four menus are open to every internal user; no particular group is required. Two nuances:

• Mes bureaux lists only your own desks. A person in the administration group sees everyone's desks, so that they can troubleshoot.
• Progression reads projects, stages and timesheets: you see there the projects you have access to in Project.

Settings#

No setting in Settings for these menus. A desk's settings are on its form; those of the progression are on the project stages (see Prepare a project for Progression).

Base data#

• For Mon bureau: at least one desk, created by you. The demo contains one, but it belongs to an account other than Camille Tremblay's, hence the Aucun bureau (no desk) message when it opens.
• For Progression: projects whose stages carry a progression step number. On installation, Symbifox tries to number the existing stages from their names; check the result in Project › Configuration › Stages.
• For Tableau de bord: nothing. The tiles fill with the data already entered in invoicing, in hosting and elsewhere.
• For Dashboards: nothing. The groups and the spreadsheets ship with the applications.

Getting started#

Camille Tremblay builds her morning desk: her activities on the left, her to-dos on the right, her calendar at the bottom.

1. Go to Mon bureau. The screen shows Aucun bureau.
2. Select Créer mon premier bureau (create my first desk). A desk form opens.
3. Enter the name “Morning”.
4. In Layout, choose Deux haut + un bas (two on top, one below).
5. In the Panneaux (panes) tab, add three lines: one for the top left slot with the “My Activities” action, one for the top right slot with the “To-dos” action, one for the bottom slot with the “Meetings” action in calendar view.
6. Save, then select Ouvrir le bureau (open the desk).
7. In the desk, select the star of the sidebar, or go back to the form and select Définir par défaut (set as default).

The desk opens with its three panes. From now on, Mon bureau shows it directly, and each pane works like the original screen: search, filters, change of view, creation.

Common tasks#

Create a desk#

You create one desk per work context.

1. Go to Mon bureau › Mes bureaux.
2. Select New.
3. Enter a name in the first field.
4. Choose the layout in Layout: a single pane, two columns, two on top and one below, one on top and two below, four quadrants or three rows.
5. In the Panneaux tab, add one line per pane (see Compose the panes of a desk).
6. Save.

The desk appears in the Mes bureaux list and in the desk sidebar.

Compose the panes of a desk#

Each pane shows an existing screen, in the view of your choice.

1. Open the desk in Mon bureau › Mes bureaux, Panneaux tab.
2. Add a line and choose the slot in the layout (top left, bottom, row 2…). A slot that is foreign to the layout is refused.
3. Choose the action, that is, the screen to show: “My Activities”, “To-dos”, “Tickets”, “Meetings”, or any other Symbifox screen.
4. Choose the view type (Kanban, list, calendar, pivot, graph, activity). Only the views offered by the screen are accepted.
5. Set the weight, from 1 to 4: the higher it is, the bigger the pane compared with its neighbours.
6. Optional: enter a display name, an extra filter or an extra context; these last two fields expect a technical expression and are reserved to the administration.
7. Save.

When the desk opens, each pane loads with its screen.

Work in a desk#

An open desk works like several screens side by side.

1. Go to Mon bureau. The default desk, or the one of the current time slot, opens.
2. In a pane, use the search bar, the filters and the favourites as in the original screen (see Common actions in every application).
3. Select an icon of the pane's view switcher to change views.
4. Select a record to open it full screen; the breadcrumb brings you back to the desk.
5. Select the pane's create button to create a record in that screen.
6. Select the pane's reload icon to refresh it alone.

The layout save button remembers the view chosen in each pane; without it, the desk reopens in the views set on its form. The favourites saved in a pane belong to the original screen: they are also available outside the desk.

Move from one desk to another#

1. In a desk, select the menu icon (three lines) of the desk bar to show or hide the sidebar.
2. In the sidebar, select the desk you want. The star marks the default desk; a badge recalls the keyboard shortcut if there is one.

Your choice to show the sidebar or not is remembered in your browser.

Set the default desk and a time slot#

Only one desk per person is the default desk. A desk can also take over at certain hours.

1. Go to Mon bureau › Mes bureaux and open the desk.
2. Select Définir par défaut. The button also exists on the row of the list.
3. Optional: in Active When, choose En tout temps (at all times), or the morning (5 a.m. to noon), the afternoon (noon to 6 p.m.), the evening (6 p.m. to midnight) or the night (midnight to 5 a.m.).
4. Save.

When Mon bureau opens, Symbifox first opens the desk whose time slot covers the current hour, otherwise the default desk, otherwise the first one of the list.

Assign a keyboard shortcut to a desk#

1. Open the desk in Mon bureau › Mes bureaux.
2. In Raccourci clavier (keyboard shortcut), enter a combination, for example “alt+1” or “shift+g”.
3. Save.

The shortcut opens this desk from any Symbifox screen. Two of your desks cannot carry the same shortcut.

Duplicate a desk#

Useful to try another arrangement without losing the original one.

1. Go to Mon bureau › Mes bureaux.
2. On the desk's row, select Dupliquer (duplicate). The button also exists on the form.

A copy of the desk and of its panes is created in your name. A person from the administration can thus duplicate a colleague's desk for themselves, then adjust it.

Archive a desk#

1. Open the desk and select the gear icon, then Archive.

The desk disappears from the sidebar. The archived filter of the list finds it again and lets you unarchive it.

Read the Tableau de bord#

1. Go to Tableau de bord.
2. Go through the tiles. Each tile carries a figure and a label; select it to open the matching list in the application concerned.

A missing tile means that the corresponding module is not installed. A tile that shows “données indisponibles” (data unavailable) signals a read error on that area alone, without blocking the others. A tile at 0 means there is nothing to show. On the demo, the captured screen shows the Erreur de chargement (loading error) banner with the Réessayer (retry) button; see Troubleshooting.

Prepare a project for Progression#

The progression is read from the project's stages. Each numbered stage becomes a step.

1. Go to Project › Configuration › Stages and open a stage.
2. Enter the Numéro d'étape de progression (progression step number): 1 for the first, 2 for the next, and so on. Leave 0 for a stage to exclude from the progression.
3. Optional: enter a short Nom d'étape de progression (progression step name), such as “Kickoff” or “Initial audit”. Left empty, the name of the stage is used.
4. Check Visible portail client (visible on the client portal) to show the stage to the client; clear it for an internal stage (review, invoicing).
5. If needed, enter a Consigne client (client instruction), the instruction shown to the client when the mandate reaches this stage (“Upload your X and Y forms”).
6. Save, and repeat for each stage of the project.

The project appears in Progression with its sequence of stages.

Follow mandates in Progression#

1. Go to Progression.
2. Read the tiles at the top: number of projects, total hours, then the projects Dépassés (over budget), Critiques (critical), Attention, Ralentis (slowing), Inactifs (inactive), Terminés (finished) and En pause (on hold).
3. Filter with Rechercher un client… (search for a client), Tous les secteurs (all sectors), Tous les budgets (all budgets) and Toute activité (any activity); change the order with Tri : Activité (sort by activity).
4. On a card, read the hours consumed against the budget (for example “37.8 / 40 h”, 94.5%), the progress bar, the overall percentage of progress through the stages, the next deadline and the number of tasks.
5. Select a card to open the detail of the mandate: the full sequence of stages, the stage reached, the tasks and the hours.
6. Select Recharger (reload) after an entry made elsewhere.

The red frame of a card signals a mandate over budget or critical; the badge beside the name gives the sector deduced from the project's name (business, internal, CPE childcare centre, non-profit, school).

Consult a spreadsheet dashboard#

1. Go to Dashboards › Dashboards.
2. In the left column, select a dashboard under its group: Sales or Product under Sales, Invoicing under Finance, Project under Services.
3. Read the summary tiles, the charts and the tables of the chosen dashboard. When a dashboard offers period filters, set them above its sections.

The demo's Sales dashboard shows four tiles (Quotations, Orders, Revenue, Average Order) with the gap from the previous period, the Monthly Sales curve and two tables of the best quotations and orders.

These dashboards are read-only in Symbifox: the figures refresh each time they open, but the layout cannot be changed.

Organize the dashboard groups#

1. Go to Dashboards › Configuration › Dashboards.
2. Open a group to see the dashboards it contains, or create a group with New.
3. Drag the rows by their handle to change the display order in the left column.
4. Save.

A group without a dashboard does not appear in the viewer: on the demo, only Sales, Finance and Services show there. A dashboard itself is a spreadsheet file loaded by the administration; everyday use is limited to consulting.

The menus, one by one#

Mon bureau: opens your default desk, or the one of the current time slot. Without a desk in your name, the screen shows Aucun bureau and the Créer mon premier bureau button.

Mon bureau › Mes bureaux: the list of your desks, with the Name, Layout, Active When, Raccourci clavier and Is Default columns, and on each row the Ouvrir (open) and Dupliquer buttons. On the demo, four of these five column labels are in English. The form carries the Ouvrir le bureau, Définir par défaut and Dupliquer buttons, and the Panneaux tab. Form screenshot: m556_form.png.

Tableau de bord: the unified tile page described in Read the Tableau de bord. No submenu.

Progression: the Progression Accompagnement (client mandate progress) page, with its tiles, its filters, its sort order and its project cards. No submenu.

Dashboards: root menu, which opens the viewer directly (the same screen as the submenu, screenshot m351.png).

Dashboards › Dashboards: the viewer, with the Sales, Finance and Services groups and their dashboards in the left column, the chosen dashboard in the centre, and a chevron to collapse the column.

Dashboards › Configuration: grouping menu.

Dashboards › Configuration › Dashboards: the list of the seven groups, with the single Name column and a sort handle per row; a group's form lists its dashboards. Form screenshot: m354_form.png.

Reference#

Fields of the desk form#

Fields of the Task Stage form (added for Progression)#

Fields of the dashboard group form#

Reports and exports#

No printable report in these four menus. The tiles of the Tableau de bord and of Progression lead to the lists of the applications concerned, from which exporting works as everywhere (see Common actions in every application).

Automations#

• When Mon bureau opens, Symbifox chooses the desk of the current time slot, otherwise the default desk, otherwise the first one.
• The Tableau de bord recalculates its tiles each time it opens. Each tile is read separately: the failure of one does not prevent the others.
• Progression files each project in a sector according to its name, and calculates on each opening the hours consumed, the progress through the stages and the status (over budget, critical, slowing, inactive…).
• When the progression is installed, the existing stages receive a number and a label from a table of keywords; the operation can be run again without creating duplicates.

Public pages and portal#

A client signed in to the portal sees the progression of their mandate: the stages checked Visible portail client, the current stage, what is coming next and the Consigne client of the stage reached. Internal stages do not show there. The portal takes up the organization's visual identity (see Settings and brand identity).

Modules that extend this application#

The Tableau de bord accepts other cards of the same kind.

The hosting, knowledge matrix and privacy tiles show by themselves when the Hosting management, Knowledge base and Privacy (Law 25 and other frameworks) applications are installed; they are not separate modules.

Understanding#

Why Camille sees a desk in the list, but “Aucun bureau” when it opens. Each person sees only their own desks, except the administration, which sees them all. The demo's desk belongs to another account; Camille sees it in Mes bureaux because she administers, but Mon bureau only looks for hers. Dupliquer makes her a copy in her name.

One default desk, one shortcut per combination. The database checks both rules: a second default desk, or two desks with the same shortcut, are refused on save.

The time slot comes before the default desk. This is intended: the morning desk opens in the morning even if another one is marked as default. Leave En tout temps on the desks that do not depend on the hour.

Panes take up the access rights of the screens. A pane shows only what the original screen would show you; a desk grants no extra access.

The Tableau de bord does not depend on the modules it shows. It installs on a database that has neither hosting, nor knowledge, nor privacy, and shows only the invoicing tiles there. A tile disappears when its module is absent; it says “données indisponibles” when the read failed; it shows 0 when there is nothing. Three different states, so that an outage is never taken for an absence.

The Tableau de bord is no longer the front door. An earlier version imposed this page on everyone as the opening screen. Since version 18.0.1.2.0, the opening screen is the home page, and each person's own setting is respected.

Progression stores nothing new on the projects. It reads the numbered stages, the tasks and the timesheets. The hours percentage compares the time entered with the project's hour budget; the overall percentage measures where the stage reached sits in the sequence. A project with no numbered stage stays at 0% overall.

Spreadsheet dashboards are read-only. Symbifox ships the viewer and the applications' prebuilt dashboards; editing these spreadsheets is not offered in the Community edition.

Troubleshooting#

See also#

• Signing in and finding your way: the home page and the top bar.
• Common actions in every application: views, filters and favourites, taken up as they are in the panes.
• To-do, Notepad and Timer: the screens most often placed in a desk.
• Project: the project stages the progression relies on.
• Timesheets: the hours the progression compares with the budget.
• Invoicing: the source of the Tableau de bord's accounting tiles.