Admin center

[marcoambrosini]

I think that the current distribution of administration workflows and settings can be improved. Currently we have at least 3 entry points for such tasks:

• User management
• App management
• Admin settings

I would propose to group all such tasks into one "admin center" app.
This makes sense to me from a logical perspective, and it's also in line with google workspace ("Google admin") and Microsoft 365 ("Microsoft 365 admin center").

Moreover: the term settings is falling short when it comes to describing what one can do in that page. There are workflows in there that are not settings, such as "Admin flows"

cc @nextcloud/designers

[jancborchardt]

I would propose to group all such tasks into one "admin center" app.

It still seems that the "Admin overview" would be the best place to put this, right? Cause having an admin-only app in the list of apps on top would create a 4th entry point next to the other 3 you mention.

If we want to put it in a more present place with a direct nav item, the right way to put it would seem to be the account menu on the top right, where also account management, apps, etc are. Something like this, where we add a clear visually distinguished block which only shows up for admins:

[marcoambrosini]

I mean a whole new "place" that includes all admin flows: user creation, apps, settings, etc..

having an admin-only app in the list of apps on top would create a 4th entry point next to the other 3 you mention.

I wouldn't keep all the other entry points. One would have to enter this new "place" to perform any admin related tasks.

the right way to put it would seem to be the account menu

Yes, the entry point for this could be account menu too, sure

[susnux]

Things to consider:

• User management ist not always needed - especially in enterprise you just use your LDAP / SAML / AD
• As an admin you barely need to access User management, App Management, and Settings right next to each other
• The backend way to register settings is not really flexible so we cannot inject them everywhere new without a 5 years deprecation phase

Personally as an admin: Please do not hide the entry points behind a new overview.
When on the admin account I want to quickly enter one of the admin entry points (settings, users, apps) without the need to navigate through a "common" entry point).

Otherwise I am all in favor of a refreshed administration :)

[marcoambrosini]

When on the admin account I want to quickly enter one of the admin entry points

My original proposal was to have an app menu entry, so the number of clicks wouldn't have increased. That said, from my pov we can keep the entry points as long as they direct to this new bucket where all admin workflows are accessible.

The backend way to register settings is not really flexible so we cannot inject them everywhere new without a 5 years deprecation phase

I'd be interested to understand more the technical limitations, will ping you next week to talk about it if you have some time

We need to please current admins where we can, but we also ought to think about the new ones that don't use Nextcloud yet, and are expecting to find something resembling the alternatives. And the industry has consolidated on what you see in the screenshots.
Also we want the number of new admins to be much bigger than the number of current admins :)

[jancborchardt]

@marcoambrosini what is the problem with adding the entry point as I proposed above in #55783 (comment) ? This would be as easy as having them in the app overview, but it would live near the other admin settings and make it easy for people who are already used to Nextcloud. It also covers @susnux worries.

[marcoambrosini]

No issue with a further entry point per se, really. If people want these shortcuts let's give them the shortcuts! We can have as many links in the UI pointing at any of the sections as we want :)

The main issue I'm trying to convey is with the "admin center" being a navigation item within settings. It is not a setting, but we treat it semantically as such. And so we do with other admin workflows (such as flows or team folders, which are also not settings).

what I think we should have is:

*Admin center  
   - Settings
   - App management
   - User management
   - Other workflows

instead of

*Settings
    - Admin center
    - Settings
    - Other workflows
*App management
*User management