ClickUp Dashboards – Do You Need it?

by David Andrew Wiebe | Oct 31, 2023 | Productivity

One of the challenges of the modern entrepreneur, project manager, or really anyone who’s trying to gain a better understanding of their company’s overall productivity is tracking, gathering, managing, and monitoring relevant data.

Besides being one of the most versatile productivity tools available, ClickUp is continually adding great new features, striving to be ever better as your hybrid Asana / Notion / Trello solution. And one of the latest exciting features is ClickUp Dashboards.

What are Dashboards in ClickUp? Let’s explore.

What are ClickUp Dashboards?

Emails, status updates, notifications… this is the domain of the modern worker. It’s nearly impossible to get away from the noise telling you things you already know about what’s going on with your department’s projects.

Let’s say it like it is – as useful as it might be to keep tabs on how the projects are progressing… unless you have the time and the means to gather, organize, and visualize the data in meaningful ways, you’re up a creek without a paddle.

ClickUp Dashboards work double duty as a task manager and a reporting tool, visualizing relevant data and supplying you with valuable takeaways you can apply to manage your projects and productivity.

Further, you can use the data to identify and address bottlenecks, edit tasks and workloads, add needed notes, and cover other essential functions.

Oh, and did I mention that Dashboards are customizable? Yes, you can set up Dashboards to match your exact needs.

That means even if you’re a solopreneur, a small team, a school, a financial professional, or another, there is a way to make ClickUp Dashboards work for you. It’s not just for big teams – it can be for individuals too.

What Types of Dashboards Can You Create?

This is probably one of the greatest things about ClickUp Dashboards – it’s highly customizable!

The following are just some of the many categories you can cover with Dashboards:

• Customer service or customer support. Monitor support tickets, track response or resolution time, set goals, and more.
• Software development. Set up team wikis and knowledgebases, keep tabs on relevant discussions, track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and more.
• Event planning. Set up a calendar, track event tasks, set deadlines, and more.
• Education and class management. Plan the semester, add a course syllabus, set weekly targets, and more.
• Finance. Keep an eye on trends, measure revenue by department, embed Excel spreadsheets, and more.
• Healthcare. Monitor patients admitted, maintain an up-to-date staff availability calendar, measure average waiting time, and more.
• Marketing. Track clicks and impressions, measure email Return on Investment (ROI), set up a list of project tasks, and more.
• Personal. Create a daily planner and personal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for yourself. Add to-dos, set personal goals, embed your calendar, and more.

You get the idea. ClickUp Dashboards are applicable across a wide range of uses – product development, Quality Assurance (QA), remote teams, sales department, and so on.

Ready to try ClickUp? There is no risk involved. You can try their Free Forever plan or check out their premium plans that will scale with your company. Simply click on the link to get started NOW.

What Types of Widgets Are There?

Widgets are what you’ll be using to set up your custom ClickUp Dashboard. There are many widgets, and I can’t cover all of them here, but I will be looking at some of the more popular options.

Let’s look at five widget types that are sure to get a lot of use:

• Time tracking widgets. The perfect tool for monitoring overall productivity. Explore which projects are taking up the most time. Or find out if your teams are overcapacity.
• Status widgets. Use status widgets to track the number of tasks in progress, tasks completed, time spent across multiple tasks, and so on.
• Custom widgets. Set up line charts, pie charts, portfolios, text blocks, chat, and more.
• Goals widgets. Track the progress of specific projects in real-time.
• Embed widgets. Add essential content from outside ClickUp – Google Docs, YouTube videos, tweets, and more.

How do I Ensure I Set Up My Dashboard Correctly?

Whether you’re new to ClickUp or have never used Dashboards before, it can sometimes be hard to know how to get started.

There aren’t too many things you need to be thinking about as you define your data story, but if you take advantage of the following tips, you should have an easier time getting it right.

Determine Who Your Dashboard is for

Is your Dashboard for you? For your partners? Your collaborators? Your team? Knowing your audience will help you determine how to make effective use of your Dashboard.

In addition to your audience, take some time to understand the problem and the story you need to tell using data.

Identify the KPIs that Matter to You or Your Organization

What do you want to track? Having gotten clear on who will be using the Dashboard, you should have a good idea of what KPIs matter. If not, spend some time determining this. When it comes to measurement, specific is always better.

Find the Right Widgets for the Job

There are different widgets suited to different purposes. Find the right ones for the job. For example, if you need to calculate the number of tasks in progress for a specific KPI, take advantage of the Calculation widget.

Customize the Dashboard Layout

The goal of any layout is to communicate key insights in a clear and efficient manner. You may not be able to figure this out on the first go around, but if you commit to iteration (also see next point), you should be able to nail down your formula.

Gather Feedback

What does your audience think of your Dashboard? Is it working for them?

Ask for feedback ongoingly and iterate as necessary. If you keep reading up on best practices and listen to feedback, you will nail a winning formula in short order.

Setting Up a Dashboard

The great news about setting up a new Dashboard inside ClickUp is the fact that there are several templates to choose from. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel if you don’t want to!

There are only three types of Dashboard templates by default, but we imagine ClickUp plans to add more. They are as follows:

• Simple Dashboard
• Reporting Dashboard
• Time Tracking Dashboard

I set up a Simple Dashboard and ClickUp populated the following:

• A welcome message
• Chat widget
• Docs, Files & Links
• Task List

While this is not the exact setup I would use for personal productivity or event management (two things that are very close to home), I found that the Dashboard was very easy to customize.

New cards are also easy to add and configure, and there are plenty to choose from.

The Verdict

I’m a big fan of any tool that makes life easier, and sometimes an easily customizable and configurable dashboard is exactly that. I sense a lot of potential in ClickUp Dashboards, and for me, it would mostly be a matter of gathering the right information and having a good sense of how it would complement my workflow to boost efficiency.

For any individual or company thinking about using ClickUp Dashboards, I think the same thing would apply.

Is ClickUp already a part of your ecosystem? If so, is adoption strong? And if adoption is solid, do you have specific KPIs to track? If you have KPIs to track, would they benefit from visualization? And if so, would a Dashboard solution work? And would you and your team check in on the dashboard regularly?

All these questions would be pertinent for anyone thinking about taking advantage of this decidedly cool functionality.

While I cannot say that Dashboards is at a “must-have” level for me yet, that could certainly change as I continue to experiment and explore the possibilities, which are admittedly many.

Have you given ClickUp a try yet? If not, and you’re interested in improving your productivity, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain! ClickUp offers a convenient Free Forever plan for those who want to try it out, and they also have Unlimited, Business, and Enterprise plans for those who know what they need. Get started now.