Jason,
There are two ways to refresh EPESI:
- full refresh: simply refresh the browser - or reload the page. This causes EPESI to reload everything.
- soft refresh: by clicking on the logo in the Action Bar in the top left corner.
The Dashboard module uses autorefresh - I believe it is setup to 30 seconds. You can test it using the Shoutbox module - after typing a message and submitting it the message will show on another user's Dashboard without the need to manually refresh. Unfortunately most modules do not auto-refresh. If you are working on the same task for example and add a note and another person has the same task open when you are making change - in order to see this change a refresh is necessary - clicking on a logo (manual soft refresh) or simply going to another screen - like browsing tasks and coming back to it.
We have a plan to rewrite EPESI to behave more like a collection of independent objects (for example applets on the Dashboard) each one communicating with the server asynchronously. But this is not coming anytime soon - it is planned for version 2.x
BTW - most database application - including desktop ones like MS Access - require some kind of action to refresh data.
