[Wrike Tip] Want to Organize your Work? There's a Widget for That ๐
Dan Hartman
Hi Community,ย
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I'm Danย ๐ย Long time reader, first-time poster!ย
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I've been an Account Executive and Account Manager at Wrike for almost two years now. Over this time, I've helped many teams build widgets in the Dashboard tab to help individuals gain better visibility of their own work. In this post, I wanted to explain how you can achieve the same.
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The first dashboard I recommend to my clients is a personal dashboard - this is where the team will go to manage the work assigned to them and understand what's up next and what's coming down the line. This is where each person of your team should start their day; reviewing what tasks require their attention.
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I've set up four widgets here. The "To Do - Next 7 Days" one is for the user viewing the dashboard to keep an eye on their own tasks. In this case I've used filters when building the widget to show only tasks that I need to work on in the next seven days. Depending on the velocity of your team's work, it might make sense to show all tasks due in the next 30 days.
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Tip:ย
- Make sure to hit the "include tasks from subfolders" checkbox when creating your dashboard's widget to see all tasks within all subfolders.
- Set assignee as "current user" so you can share the Dashboard with others and they'll only see their own tasks.ย
- Then finally pick a due date timeframe of your choice.
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The "Created By Me" widget shows all tasks where I am the author, and in this case I've created widgets for "All My Tasks" (all tasks assigned to me, sorted by due date) and an "Activity Stream" widget so I can keep an eye on updates to tasks I'm following. Very useful as these changes don't always trigger an Inbox notification.ย
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Optimal configuration for individual dashboards is very specific to how the team operates, but the above provides a good starting point from which you can organize your own work and help your team organize their work too.
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Final tip: Make sure to share this dashboard with the My Team Group using the option in the top right settings of your dashboard so everyone on your team can access the dashboard. Once you've chosen to filter the widget by 'Current User', each person on your team will see the widgets' data customized for their own tasks.
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For those of you who just want a basic dashboard to help manage your own workload, the above steps will help you improve visibility and allow you and your team manage your work proactively.ย
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It's worth mentioning that we have a consultant-led deployment process available if you really want to dig deep into your processes, the configuration of your workspace (including customized dashboards), general Wrike training for your team and change management best practices to help you onboard new members. Reach out to your Account Manager if you'd like to discuss this option further.
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If you have any questions about Dashboards or anything else, I'm happy to discuss belowย ๐ I'd also love to hear any tips you have for the day to day management of your workload.
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If there's interest, I'm happy to post about other types of dashboards, too. Just let me know!
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Happy posting!ย ๐
Hey, Dan,
This is a very thoughtful post that I hope you'll be able to update.ย All images in the post show as "The file was deleted"
I currently have 17 dashboards.ย I started with someone I thought all users would like and, as you recommended, changed the perspective to "Current User", then shared with everyone.ย From there, I tweaked to show explicit users and shared that with managers.ย I also setup department work view and shared with department users.ย ย
I periodically find that managers want to change up the dashboard I've made for them, but they don't know as much about the software.ย They may duplicate and modify to their liking.ย I ask that they then unshare the original one I made for them to keep things less confusing for themselves.
Each team does operate differently and I've made different status workflows for several.ย These are helpful for use the departmental dashboards as well.
Brandy
Hi Brandy,
Good to hear from you! The images are showing up for me - are they still missing on your end?
It seems like it's pretty often that managers need highly customisable versions of dashboards. Would you mind sharing some of your dashboards for our other community members?
If there's interest, I'm happy to share some of the dashboards I've seen/built with managers.
Cheers,
Dan
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Hi Dan, the images are also missing for me, can you please re-add, this is a useful topic for me! Thanks Staceyย
Hi all, not sure what's happening here. I can see the photos using various browsers.
I've edited and republished the images. Let me know if there's any further issues ๐
I can see them now thank you!
I can see now, too.. On a 3rd device.
@Stacey, @Brandy - Thanks for letting me know. Hopefully, it's fixed now ๐ค
It would be great to hear if Dan's post is something everybody has already or will start doing now.
And what if you're a manager, what view are you usually checking to see how you'reย team are getting on with their tasks?ย
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Ps. @Brandy, please say that the dog in your profile image actually exists in the non-cartoonย world ๐ย
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Here's an example of a dashboard for an area I admin; split into ongoing type of work and project work and again by milestones to keep an eye on and individual tasks.ย The graph is a filtered view taken from the Analytics view.ย I have similar views setup for each department within the company and I've shared these views with each respective manager and all views with our CEO.ย I'm utilizing custom workflows and groups of people to highlight only what I want to see.
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Right click on the image and open in a new tab for a better view.
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PS. Alas, my dog only exists in the cartoon world.ย I'm the cat lady in a canine registration organization.
@Brandy, these Dashboards are so impressive and more importantly, super useful for C-level and managers!ย
I rarely see people bring in the Analytics charts to Dashboards, but it's super useful, especially for any manager. I spent an hour today playing with these kinds of widgets because your example reminded me of some things I could do with this view, so thank you! ๐ย
Is there anyone here using Analytics charts in widgets too, and would you like to share what kind of data they're displaying there; task volumes, etc.?
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@Brandy, I do love dogs, but I'm a cat owner too. And I guess I'm a real "cat-person" now because this isn't even the first time I've mentioned my cat here on the Community.๐๐
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Well, I learned something new here! I wondered what "Current User" was, since i figured that was me and why would i choose myself! LOL.
I can't live w/out my Dashboards! As the Marketing Department, we are required by the Owner to respond to all negative reviews w/in a 24 hour period. First we are notified of them, we then write up a tentative response, send that out to the Store who received the review for their approval or revision. We have a custom workflow for this procedure, which i turned into a dashboard. This way, if either myself or my assistant are out, we have an instant view of all the statuses of all reviews.ย This also gives us a Quick Reference for those that need follow up if we are getting close to the 24-hour deadline. Please note, we only track Negative reviews.
One thing i wish could be done, is that when the widget (and all of Wrike) sorts by date, the most recent is at the TOP, not the bottom of the list.ย
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I also have one for all Print media i order from our supplier, also based on Custom Workflow. This workflow auto assigns to our Courier when the items are ready for pickup and then reassigned to me when they have been delivered so i can send the invoice to AP for processing. This one has saved so much time. No longer leaving little sticky notes, asking everyone if the package is here, etc. Oh, and I've begun using the Wrike ID number for my PO's, makes it so easy to look up anything if there are questions.ย
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Dashboards are a great way to track your tasks and to see where everyone is with theirs, but also for keeping track of the progression of tasks and/or projects themselves. Definitely a great asset to the Wrike Program.
Great examples Marj!
For the first Dashboard where you need to be really reactive. Having a place you can quickly check things without scrolling through your email inbox (ughย ๐) is great, not only for your productivity but also for your general well being ๐For me, using your emailย inbox as a workspace (like so many companies do), is just notย efficient so I'm glad to hear you manage this reactive process using widgets ๐
As for the date reversal, are you looking for something like this request from Juan? If so, it would be great to add your vote, this post needs more votes and input.
The second example is one you don't hear enough of, but almost all teams have some sort of logistics and invoicing they want to track, again outside of their email inbox. If you ever have some time, it would be great to give a very brief overview of how you created this Dashboard for the Best Practice section here on Community.
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Also, sticky notes are good for one thing... stickingย a fun message on theย back of your colleagues without them knowing ๐
I use this Wrike ToDo Chrome extension as my sticky notes now. To be honest, I was late toย use this feature and now I use it all day long. It's like a sticky note you can't miss because it creates your notes as a Task in a private Folder in Wrike automatically. It also shows your Wrike Inbox, it's worth a try!
The downside though, no funny jokes to play on colleaguesย ๐
I'll get the How I Did It worked up for the second Dashboard and add it to the Best Practice section soon!
Did I mention, that, for the first Dashboard, in regard to our reviews, when we send the email to the location for review, we Bcc the Wrike Folder's email address (Which we have saved as a Contact) where the reviews are kept. This automatically adds them to the correct folder (i.e. Yelp, Google, etc.) and marks them With Manager!ย Takes about 30 seconds and, viola, it's in the Dashboard, auto assigned to the correct person, and dated.ย Did I mention how much Iย ๐ย Wrike?ย ย
I gave the Chrome extension a try before, and didn't really care for it, however, I only gave it a few minutes of testing. I'll give it another go.ย
That best practice would be great Marj, thank you. No rush, I know you're busy ๐
Great creative thinking using the email integration to duplicate the email you're sending straight into a Wrike task placed exactly where you need it -ย love this use of email integration. I also do this for any emails I receive from external people that need my attention. I think 'I need to action this email', so it's an automatical reflex now to send it via the integration to my own folder, and then it's my Dashboard and ready for me to work on when I'm ready -ย nothing is lost or forgotten ๐
I was exactly the same when using the extension, but give it a go! For me, I like that I can't open a new tab without being reminded there's an item in my ToDo that I need to look at, it's a constant reminder. It's better than finding sticky notes I made stuck to the bottom of my shoe - but maybe that's just me ๐
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OK - i give up - how to I add Analytics charts to Dashboards? I can't seem to find them.
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Ok - found them - for those like me who couldn't - the secret is to add them FROM the Analytics screen - top right ...ย option is "Add to dashboard"
:)
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@Debbie,
Glad you found them! And it's great to see you back on Communityย ๐
I'd love to hear what kind of Dashboard you're using this Analytics charts for?
I am trying to set up the dashboard as instructed by Dan. When I make the "to do- next 7 days" widget and choose "Choose Project or Folder" I limit my overview to the tasks in that particular folder. Is that correct? And what about my tasks relating to all the other projects or folders?
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Hi Berit,
Here are two approaches I like:
1. Create a separate Dashboard for each Project, this keeps things nice and tidy on your screen so nice and tidy in your mind i.e. it's easy to understand what task is related to what project - you can create multiple Dashboards. ๐
2. What I do when I want to see multiple projects on a widget. Create a new personal Folder e.g. My Tasks. Then every time there's a task you need to work on, tag it to that new folder. Then when creating the widget, you can base it on this Folder. So everything you see in this widget is everything you've tagged as your Project.
If someone assigns me to a task, the first thing I do is tag it to My Tasks folder so it automatically shows up on my Dashboard wdiget - super handy!
What do you think?
One tip regarding Dashboards that has been a huge help for us: Use the search feature to create your widgets!
For example, our request forms require the input of specific project codes that we include in every single task title based on which project it is for. These tasks are then assigned to different teams within our company based on which form is used. Within each team's folder, I create Dashboards for each project based on the search results.ย
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This helps us create better widgets because there are almost never typos in the project code, but people often have typos in the project name.
It also allows our Project Management teams to share a Dashboard for specific projects - using the search feature lets you see all the tasks with a specific title but doesn't need to specify an author/assignee.
Thanks Soraya, that's a great advanced Wrike usage tip!