Card Designer: Activity Card
An activity card is the compact summary block Aeon shows for each activity in a list — the rows you scroll through in the Activities view, in global search results, and in the dashboard's activity panel. Each card always leads with the activity name and a status badge; everything below that — the description line and the row of small detail chips like location, dates, and linked-user count — is what the Activity Card Designer lets you control.
You use this designer once, as a setup task, to decide what staff see at a glance when they browse activities. If your team scans activities by Begin Date and Location, put those front and center. If you track a custom field on every activity, surface it. The designer is a visual editor: you drag fields from a palette onto a live preview of the card, tune how each one looks, and save the result as a reusable template.
- You're setting up Aeon and want activity cards to show the fields your staff actually scan for.
- An activity list feels cluttered or sparse — you want to add, remove, or reorder the detail chips.
- You've added a custom activity field (Activity Info 1–5) and want it visible in the list, not just on the activity record.
This page is about the card — the small list-row summary. It does not change the full activity record you open and edit. Laying out the activity detail page is a separate tool, the Form Designer: Activity Form. Think of it as: the Card Designer controls the preview, the Form Designer controls the full page.
Opening the Activity Card Designer
- Open the Customization Manager from the main navigation.
- In the left sidebar, open the Card Designer group and choose Activity Card.
- The designer opens full-screen with the heading Activity Card Designer and the subtitle "Customize how activity cards appear in lists."
To leave, click Back in the top-left (it returns you to the Customization Manager). If you have unsaved changes, Aeon stops you with an Unsaved Changes dialog — "You have unsaved changes. Are you sure you want to leave? Your changes will be lost." — where you can choose Leave Without Saving or Cancel.
The Card Designer is part of the Designers configuration area. Your role needs the Designers configuration capability to open it and save changes. If you don't have it, the Customization Manager won't offer the designer. (See Editing a Role: Configuration Capabilities.)
What the screen looks like
The designer has a toolbar across the top and three working columns:
| Area | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Template bar (top) | Pick the template you're editing, create/duplicate/rename/delete templates, set the default, save or discard. |
| Designer toolbar (below it) | Reset to system default, plus Undo and Redo. |
| Fields (left column) | The palette of activity fields you can add, grouped by category, with a Search fields… box. |
| Preview (center) | A live activity card. Drag fields here, click a field to select it, drag to reorder. |
| Properties (right column) | Settings for the field you've selected — label, width, display style, and so on. |
The fixed top row
The first line of every activity card is fixed and can't be edited or removed: a (disabled) selection checkbox, lock and view icons, the activity name, and the activity status badge on the right. You build your layout in the rows beneath that line. This guarantees every card stays recognizable and selectable no matter how you customize it.
Adding, arranging, and removing fields
Add a field
The palette on the left lists the fields available for activity cards, grouped into categories: Basic Info, Location & Dates, Statistics, Reference, Billing, and Custom Fields. Use the Search fields… box at the top to filter by name.
There are two ways to add a field:
- Drag it from the palette onto the preview card — drop it onto a row, or between two existing fields to place it precisely.
- Click it in the palette — it's added to the row of whatever field is currently selected (or the last row if nothing is selected).
For example, to show how many people are attached to each activity, find Linked Users under Statistics and drag it onto the card.
The palette includes activity-specific fields such as Activity Name, Description, Activity Type, Activity Status, Status Date (Basic Info); Location, Begin Date, End Date (Location & Dates); Linked Users, Request Count (Statistics); Reference Name, Reference Number (Reference); Billing Category (Billing); and Activity Info 1 through Activity Info 5 (Custom Fields). The Activity Info fields are your site's custom activity fields — use them to surface whatever you track locally.
Reorder and move fields
- Reorder within a row: drag a field left or right.
- Move between rows: drag a field up or down onto another row.
- Keyboard: select a field, then press Ctrl/Cmd + ↑ or Ctrl/Cmd + ↓ to move it to the row above or below.
While you drag, a small label shows which field you're moving, so it's easy to track.
Remove a field
Select the field and either:
- click Remove Field at the bottom of the Properties panel, or
- press Delete or Backspace.
Styling a field (Properties panel)
Click any field on the preview card to open its settings on the right. You'll see:
- Field — the field you're editing (read-only).
- Custom Label — override the field's name, or leave blank to use the default. (Many card chips show no label at all, just the value with an icon.)
- Width — Auto, Fill, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, or Full Width. Detail chips are usually Auto; a description or title is usually Full Width.
- Display Style — how the value renders:
- Plain Text — just the text.
- Icon + Text — an icon followed by the value. Choosing this reveals an Icon picker.
- Badge — the value in a pill; reveals a Badge Style option (Default, Outline, Secondary, Destructive).
- Template — a custom string mixing several fields; reveals a Template String box where you write something like
{name} — {location}using{fieldName}syntax.
- Text Size — Extra Small, Small, or Medium.
- Font Weight — Normal, Medium, Semibold, or Bold.
- Color — Default, Muted, Primary, or Accent.
- Hide if Empty — on by default. When on, the field disappears from a card whenever that activity has no value for it, so cards never show blank chips. Turn it off only if you want a placeholder to always appear.
Out of the box, the activity card shows the Description as a muted full-width line, then a row of Location (map-pin icon), Begin Date (calendar icon), Linked Users (people icon), and Activity Type. That's a good template to copy and tweak rather than building from scratch.
Working with templates
The Card Designer saves layouts as named templates so you can keep more than one and reuse them. The template bar across the top is where you manage them.
- Switch templates: pick one from the template dropdown (the default is marked with a default tag). If you have unsaved edits, Aeon asks "You have unsaved changes. Discard and switch templates?" before switching.
- Create / duplicate / rename / delete: open the ⋯ (template actions) menu for New Template, Duplicate, Rename, Set as Default, Reset to System Default, and Delete.
- Set as Default: marks the template Aeon uses for activity cards when a role isn't pointed at a specific one.
- Save / discard: the right side of the bar shows the current state — Saved, Unsaved, or Saving…. Click Save to commit, or the discard (circular-arrow) button to roll back to the last save. Ctrl/Cmd + S also saves.
A saved template only affects what staff see once it's the one in effect. The activity list uses the default activity-card template unless a staff member's role is assigned a different one. You wire a specific template to a role under Editing a Role: Layout Assignments — that's how different teams can see different activity cards from the same data.
Undo, redo, and reset
- Undo / Redo sit on the designer toolbar (also Ctrl/Cmd + Z and Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z).
- Reset to system default (the circular-arrow button on the toolbar, and the matching menu item) restores Aeon's built-in activity card layout. You're warned first — "This will reset all layouts … to the system default. This cannot be undone."
Deleting a template also removes any role layout assignments that point at it — those roles fall back to the default. Aeon warns you before deleting: "This will also remove any role assignments that reference this template."
Request cards can have alternate layouts per queue. Activity cards don't — there's a single layout per template, and you switch which template applies through the template default and role assignments described above.
Screenshots to capture before publishing:
- The full designer with palette + preview + properties panels visible.
- The template bar with the template-actions (⋯) menu open.
- A before/after of an activity card as it appears in the Activities list.
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