Landing Page

Landing page

How to choose which page people see when they open FreeITSM, and how an analyst can override that choice for themselves. The technical version is Landing page — Developer Guide.

Asked for in discussion #63 by Thomas (tjedelhauser). Shipped in f1673644.

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The problem

Opening FreeITSM without being logged in always took you to the analyst login. On an installation where most people are end users rather than analysts, that is an odd front door: the first thing your staff see is a sign-in page built for the service desk, not the portal they actually came to use.

The choice

System → Branding → Landing page. Two options:

Setting	Where "/" sends an unauthenticated visitor
Analyst login	login.php — the original behaviour, and still the default
Self-service portal	self-service/login.php

Nothing is ever out of reach. The two login pages link to each other, so an analyst arriving at the portal is one click from their own login and vice versa. Typing either address directly always works regardless of the setting.

The setting only affects people who are not signed in. If you already have a session, opening FreeITSM takes you to your module list exactly as before.

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The per-analyst override

Making the portal the front door is right for your end users, but it would cost your analysts an extra click every day. So they can opt out.

Preferences → Start page. Three options:

• Use the site default — whatever the administrator chose. The option names it, so you can see what you are agreeing to.
• Analyst login
• Self-service portal

The choice belongs to the analyst, not to the browser. Set it once and it is reapplied every time you sign in, including the first time you sign in on a new computer. Clearing your cookies does not lose it either.

Why this one is slightly different from your other preferences. Everything else on the Preferences page is read after you have signed in. This one has to be read before you sign in, because it decides where sign-in happens. So as well as being saved to your account, it is stored in the browser you are using. That is what makes it work on the very first page you see, and the account copy is what makes it follow you to a new machine.

End users cannot override it

The self-service portal has no preferences area, so an end user gets whatever the administrator chose. That is the intended direction of travel: the setting exists so administrators can point end users at the portal, and analysts are the ones who need the escape hatch.

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A worked example

You run FreeITSM for a company of 200 staff, of whom 6 are analysts.

1. System → Branding → Landing page → Self-service portal. Everybody who types your FreeITSM address now lands on the portal, which is what 194 of them want.
2. Your 6 analysts each open Preferences → Start page → Analyst login. They are back to a single click, and nobody has lost anything.
3. An analyst gets a new laptop. The first time they sign in on it, their choice is applied there too — nothing to set up again.
4. A member of staff needs to reach the analyst login for some reason. The link is on the portal login page.

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Related pages

• Landing page — Developer Guide
• Self-Service Portal