You Detailed Guide on How to Make a Dashboard in Smartsheet

Project managers will find a way to show the progress of a project at a high level. He will do it by making presentations to executives, by doing intermittent rounds with the members of the team, and by updating clients on different matters. In any way, you’ll need a summary of your work that’ll keep all of the people from the company on the same page and to help them create a plan. Just3things is also here to help you on that matter. There are many companies out there which went for a project management dashboard, for resource allocation, status updates, an interesting visual representation of key metrics and important documentation. This project management dashboard comes with two functions. The first one organizes the key pieces of project data for more than one team. The second one helps the team to get important data without actually going into lots of details, which are usually confusing and highly irrelevant for top-level management. More details about the Project Management Dashboard A dashboard is used for the visualization of work while is being done. It’s really helpful when it comes to reviewing key statistics, make departmental reports, even tracking the whole activity of the business in time. The process is easy to read and it shows the values and metrics – it even compares statistics. And because of the fact that it lets teams to see the process in a clear crystal way, communication will also improve. They will see the roadblocks and will adjust to reach their end goal, without having problems. A Project Management Dashboard is usually used for projects with more than one part, as they hold the essential parts of an ordinary dashboard, such as the visual, high-level overview. They are perfect for more teams, because it keeps track of their progress and trajectory. When you want to create a project management dashboard, you’ll probably use data from lots of spreadsheets, resources and timelines to make a full-info center. This way, it’ll be easier to manage the work and show the status of it to both internal and external investors. Why should you do it? Originally, project management dashboards were used to give essential data in a snapshow view. Things are different now that we have more key metrics, and written information and images. You can do it from scratch, but you don’t really have to, since there are many online tools that can save you from hours of spending time doing it instead of focusing on the actual work. How to make a dashboard in smartsheet To start this, you need to fill the smartsheet with data that you will put on your dashboard. Make sure that the sheet and report are set up properly, as they should show the results that you want to appear in your dashboard. If this doesn’t happen, something might have gone wrong. Key metrics are going to be calculated straight from the report, and the dashboard will then gather them. Go to the Home tab from the smartsheet and go to Create New. Select Dashboard from the list. Now it’s time to name it. After you’ve typed a name, click OK. After you opened your dashboard, you’ll see the black canvas. You’ll have to build it from the ground in order to have all the information that you want in your dashboard. To do it, you’ll use Widgets, which are cooperative boxes full of info that are made to show the key results, general data and metrics. They’ll look like tiles on your dashboard. So what you need to do is click on + Add Widget, which is placed at the top of your dashboard. Remember that there are seven types to go for. Choose the one that suits you best. Choose the Rich Text widget and add text to the field. You’ll be able to choose the size and font of the text, then choose the colors from the widget. Then click on Done. The widget should appear on your dashboard canvas. You are able to move it around by using drag and drop and change its size by clicking on the corner of the widget. It’s advisable to wait until you’ve created them all, before starting to change the size and the design on your widgets. Choose the Sheet Data widget, as it will let you make a list of all the data from the original sheet. Click on Add data, then select the sheet you want to drag the data from, then select one list of values from your sheet. You can change the labels, text size, font and color. After you’re finished, click on Done. Choose Shortcut and Shortcut List widgets, as they will let you make, well, shortcuts in your dashboards. All you have to do is Add Shortcut, which is placed at the top left-hand corner.