Imagine you are a Project Manager and you’re walking in to your office in the morning. After you’ve found your first mug of coffee, you turn on your computer. It’s logical that the first thing you would want to know is: what do I have to do today? You want to know whether your projects are on track both time-wise and financially. And you need to know if there’s anything that needs your urgent attention? 

As a team manager, you also want to know what your people have been up to. Who’s at risk of dropping the ball? Your boss (also in search of his morning coffee-fix) walks past and wants to know about invoices and payments. 

You and the Dashboard

The whole idea of a dashboard is that you see all the information you need at a glance. So what it is that is important enough to find a spot on your dashboard? And maybe even more to the point, what is so important that it shouldn’t be left off the dashboard. 

It’s important to remember that dashboards are not just for project managers. The entire team needs to have a good overview of the active projects. Managers need to make swift decisions. 

1.     Getting the basics right

Unrelated to what’s on the dashboard, it’s important that dashboards are intuitive and very scannable. Because Dashboard are overview tools, the general rule of less-is more applies. Clutter anything with a lot of unnecessary information and what is of essence is lost in the ‘noise’. In other words, ‘simple’  and ‘visual’ are the message. On the other hand, have too little on your dashboard and you are lacking all the information you need. 

2.     NOW is the word

But it’s equally vital that any dashboard information is current. Nobody wants to have to import and export information before they get to the info that relates to this very moment. Not only is this a question of efficiency but also of accuracy. Real-time is a non-negotiable in our book. 

3.     What’s on the Dashboard?

So going back to our above script, what is the information you want on your dashboard? 

The question on your mind : How does all this translate to Proworkflow?

At ProWorkflow, we are all about making sure that you can manage your project as best as possible. You have all the real-time information at your fingertips.  We put a lot of thought in the design of our dashboard and just recently did a fair bit of work on improving the visual aspect of it. With a well-designed dashboard, no project details are ever lost or misrepresented. You don’t have to dig for information. It’s all there, right in front of you. 

ProWorkflow Bonus Tip: 

Did you know that you can customize the dashboard header links? It means that your accounting software, your website link, or your One Drive account is only one click away.