Queue Designer

By default, the dashboard's Queue Overview lists every queue under a single Queues heading and every request flag under a single Flags heading. That works, but a busy site can have dozens of queues, and a flat list buries the ones staff actually touch all day.

The Queue Designer lets you group queues and flags into named categories — for example, a "Reading Room" category holding the New Reading Room Request and Item Checked Out queues, a "Photoduplication" category for copy-related queues, and a "Needs Attention" category for the flags you watch. You build these groupings as layout templates, then assign a template to a staff role so everyone in that role sees the same organized left panel. It is a configuration tool, not a daily-work tool: you set it up once (and revisit it when your queues change), not every shift.

When you'll use this

• You're setting up a new Aeon site and want the dashboard's queue list organized by workflow area instead of one long list.
• Your team keeps scrolling past queues they never use — group the high-traffic ones into a category at the top.
• You added new queues or custom flags in the Customization Manager and want to slot them into the right category.
• Different roles need different views — build one template per role (front desk vs. processing staff vs. photoduplication) and assign each.

Queue Designer vs. customizing the dashboard directly

The dashboard's Queue Overview card also has its own Customize button, where any staff member can rearrange their own queue list (clicking it switches the card into edit mode, and the button becomes Done). That personal arrangement is private to that user. The Queue Designer is different: it builds shared templates that an administrator assigns to a role, so an entire team starts from the same layout. Use the Queue Designer when you want to standardize what staff see; use the dashboard's own Customize button for one person's personal tweaks. A staff member's personal arrangement, if they've made one, takes precedence over the role template.

Where to find it

Open the Customization Manager, then in the Designers group select Queue Designer. (Other designers — Form Designer, Card Designer, Print Designer, Activity Designer — sit alongside it in the same group.)

Permissions

The Queue Designer, like every tool in the Designers group, requires the Designers configuration capability on your role. If your role doesn't grant it, the Designers section won't be available to you. Organizing queues affects what other staff see, so this is an administrator/customizer task.

How layout templates work

Everything in the Queue Designer is a template: a named, saved arrangement of categories. A site can have several templates, and exactly one can be marked the default.

When a staff member loads their dashboard, Aeon decides which arrangement to show by walking down this chain and stopping at the first match:

1. The staff member's own personal arrangement, if they've customized the Queue Overview themselves.
2. The template assigned to their role, set under Roles & Permissions → Layout Assignments → Queue Layout.
3. The default template (the one marked with the default badge here).
4. Aeon's built-in layout — a simple Queues category and a Flags category — if nothing above applies.

So designing a template is only half the job: to put it in front of a team, either mark it the default or assign it to a role. (See the role layout-assignment documentation for the assignment step.)

The toolbar

A toolbar runs across the top of the Queue Designer:

Control	What it does
Template dropdown (left)	Pick which template you're editing. The current default shows a default badge.
⋯ menu (Template actions)	New Template, Duplicate, Rename, Set as Default, and Delete.
Status text (right)	Reads Saved, Unsaved, or Saving… so you always know whether your work is committed.
Discard (circular-arrow icon)	Appears only when you have unsaved changes; reverts the layout to the last saved version.
Save	Writes your changes to the selected template. Disabled until you've made a change.

Your edits aren't live until you save

Dragging items around updates the canvas immediately, but nothing reaches staff until you click Save. The status text is your safety net — if it says Unsaved, your changes exist only in the canvas in front of you.

Creating a template

1. In the toolbar, open the ⋯ menu and choose New Template.
2. In the New Template dialog, type a name (for example, Processing Staff) and click Create.
3. The new template opens for editing. If you created it while another template was selected, it starts as a copy of that template's categories; otherwise it starts from Aeon's built-in Queues / Flags layout.

To base a new template on an existing one explicitly, select the source template first, then use ⋯ → Duplicate, give the copy a name, and click Duplicate.

Names are unique per designer

Two queue-layout templates can't share the same name. If you try to create, rename, or duplicate to a name that's already in use, Aeon refuses and asks for a different one.

Building your categories

The editing canvas shows your categories as collapsible groups, with any queues and flags that aren't in a category listed below under an Uncategorized divider.

Add a category

Click Add Category (top right of the canvas). A new group named New Category appears at the top with its name ready to edit — type the real name (for example, Reading Room) and press Enter.

Put queues and flags into categories

Everything is drag-and-drop. Grab a queue or flag by its handle (the ⋮⋮ grip on the left) and drag it:

• Into a category to file it there. An empty category shows a dashed Drop items here target.
• Within a category to reorder it.
• Onto another category to move it across.

Categories themselves can be reordered the same way — drag a category by the grip in its header to change the order they appear on the dashboard. While you're dragging a category, the others collapse automatically so it's easier to drop it where you want.

Every queue and flag stays available

You don't have to place everything. Any queue or flag you haven't filed into a category appears under the Uncategorized divider at the bottom, and staff still see it on the dashboard. Categorizing is about emphasis and grouping, not about hiding things. The Queue Designer also shows inactive queues and flags here so you can pre-organize them; note that the dashboard itself only lists queues that are active and currently have requests in them, so a queue you've categorized won't appear there until it's both active and has something waiting.

Rename, collapse, or delete a category

In a category's header:

• The chevron collapses or expands the group. A category's collapsed state is saved with the template, so you can have a rarely-used group start collapsed for everyone.
• The pencil renames it.
• The trash deletes it. Deleting a category does not delete the queues or flags inside it — they simply return to the Uncategorized list.

The number on the right of each category header is the count of queues and flags in that category — a quick check that everything landed where you expected.

Save

When the layout looks right, click Save. The status text switches to Saved, and the template now reflects your arrangement. Staff assigned this template (or everyone, if it's the default) will pick up the new layout.

Switching templates with unsaved changes

If you try to pick a different template while you have unsaved edits, Aeon warns you: "You have unsaved changes. Discard and switch templates?" Choosing OK throws away those edits. Save first if you want to keep them.

Setting the default template

To make one template the starting point for any role that doesn't have its own assignment:

1. Select the template in the dropdown.
2. Open the ⋯ menu and choose Set as Default.

The default badge moves to that template. Only one queue-layout template can be the default at a time, so setting a new one clears the previous default automatically.

Deleting a template

1. Select the template you no longer need.
2. Open the ⋯ menu and choose Delete, then confirm in the Delete Template dialog.

Deleting a template also clears its role assignments

The confirmation dialog spells this out: deleting a template "will also remove any role assignments that reference this template." Any role that was pointed at this template falls back down the resolution chain — to the default template, or to Aeon's built-in layout if there's no default. If a team relies on this template, reassign them to another one before you delete it.

A worked example

Say you want processing staff to see their work grouped, and the default to stay simple for everyone else.

1. Open Customization Manager → Designers → Queue Designer.
2. ⋯ → New Template, name it Processing Staff, click Create.
3. Click Add Category, name it In Process. Drag the Awaiting Request Processing and In Item Retrieval queues into it.
4. Click Add Category, name it Reading Room. Drag the New Reading Room Request and Item Checked Out queues into it.
5. Leave the housekeeping queues and the flags in Uncategorized — they'll still show, just below the named groups.
6. Click Save; the status reads Saved.
7. Go to Roles & Permissions, open the processing-staff role, and under Layout Assignments set Queue Layout to Processing Staff.

Everyone in that role now opens the dashboard to an In Process group up top, a Reading Room group below it, and the rest under Uncategorized — without touching anyone else's view.

Editor review — remove this callout (and the HTML comment below it) before publishing

A few things only an SME can confirm on this page:

• Resolution-chain framing: I describe the order as personal arrangement → role assignment → default template → built-in. That's straight from FormLayoutsController. Confirm we want to teach customers the personal-overrides-role nuance, or whether that should be downplayed since it can surprise admins ("I set the role template but this user sees something else").
• Queue vs. dashboard editing: confirm the two-entry-points framing (shared role templates here vs. the per-user Customize button on the Queue Overview card) is how we want to present it — they're genuinely separate features and easy to conflate.
• Screenshots needed: (1) the Queue Designer with a couple of populated categories and the Uncategorized divider; (2) the toolbar ⋯ menu open showing New/Duplicate/Rename/Set as Default/Delete; (3) optionally the Roles → Layout Assignments → Queue Layout dropdown for the assignment step.

The full generation metadata — sources, files read, and verifications — is in the HTML comment directly below this callout. When this page has been reviewed and approved, delete both this callout and that comment; a page with no Editor-review callout is one that's done.