Default the /user page to /civicrm/user (Contact Dashboard)
Proposal: replace /user with /civicrm/user.
Context: We are currently using the Drupal user profile page, with a few plain blocs (html block, menu blocks), wrapped inside a panel. There is also a view for "your support matters".
Why?
- The current /user is good enough, but CiviCRM has a Contact Dashboard that aims to do exactly this. It might not be good enough, but we should use and improve the tools we develop and encourage people to use.
- The views/panels/blocks, even if not much, increases the quantity of custom duct tape that requires maintenance and will need to be re-done anyway once we upgrade the CMS. May as well do it now, to ease our upgrade path.
Despite some shortcomings, the Contact Dashboard has a few advantages that already work: Viewing recent contributions, events, membership status, relationships (useful for partners, to see who is linked to their partner record).
What's missing:
- I would place "Your membership" at the top completely (see: reorderdashboard)
- The "Your Groups" should also have a link to: https://civicrm.org/update-my-mailing-preferences - or we might replace the block completely for now.
- A better 'call to action'? a one-sentence help text? I think our current /user is pretty representative of CiviCRM itself: a lot of links, not intuitive for new users. (I just made matters worst, by adding two links for time-contributions). Although I want to avoid debates about defining audiences, because it's a never-ending discussion and I'm only aiming to provide status quo, while keeping in mind we will improve the dashboard once we're ready to move forward.