Can I set a default dashboard layout for all users?

Hi @Relequestual:

I think what you want is here:

• Dashboard Widgets API / Advanced: Forcing your widget to the top

It doesn’t require you to change code per se, just to add the code like shown in the WordPress Codex to your theme’s functions.php file which is a standard way to customize and/or extend WordPress:

To find out the values you need use, just add a print_r($wp_meta_boxes); line then an exit; immediately below the global $wp_meta_boxes; line like this:

global $wp_meta_boxes;
print_r($wp_meta_boxes);
exit;  // Stop execution here so you can see it.

You may need to actually view source to make sense of it all.

-Mike