Dashboards vs. Home

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 11, 2020
7 replies
1055 views

When we were making decisions on what to support and implement prior to launch last October, and given our heavy customization, we opted to abandon working on Home because we found it awkward and incomplete vs. what the users needed to see/do. So we basically told users "if you're having issues with Home; that's Phase II at best, please use Dashboard XYZ." Despite this, and because we couldn't turn Home off on layout templates in some cases, a few users have found some cases where it is handy vs. our dashboards; though we suspect this is because of a problem that is a mix of: a) they aren't providing necessary dashboard feedback, and b) Home is not showing them a complete enough picture and they don't realize it. This is on the Classic layout; we were too close to launch to suddenly re-evaluate everything for the New Experience. That review is planned in March and might launch July 1 for us if all goes well. We do plan a re-review of Home functionality during this New Experience review, as we've promised the users. So I'd like to hear from the Community at large, especially design agencies, on the pros and cons of Home vs. tailored Dashboards/Reports. Or do you use some sort of hybrid? Also happy to listen to an in-your-own-words description of the intent of Home and it's limitations. Very curious about nuts-n-bolts level annoyances ("I can do X on a dashboard, but can get the same X minus these three things on Home", etc.). Kevin Quosig

Workfront

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imgrund

Adobe Employee

Since you can't get rid of Home, we always mention it in trainings and to in general when talking about work in Workfront. Some people like... everything in one list the ability to do a lot of work on the right hand without going to the object filter out Not Ready To Start items However, even with that said, we do have some business units (we have 15 in the system) that prefer custom dashboard. Most do that to reduce the number of tasks that show to just Due Today or Tomorrow (and overdue) separate requests from different request queues into one dashboard (since Team Requests are not in Home and take you somewhere else) show a calendar of all future tasks And for proof approvals too, to filter out pending proofs from projects that are cancelled or complete before all decisions have been made. (Downside, I can only take them to the document and then they have to hit Go To Proof) But like I said, we never stop people from using Home as some like it better and we can't get rid of it. ;) Hope that helps Anthony Imgrund FCB

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BenettaPe

Level 9

We use both. Home would be MORE usable if the System Admin (me) could add customized sorts and filters - as what is out of the box is limiting. We use dashboards a lot now - since Leap 2019 - Thanks, Home - 20% users Dashboards - 80% users Benetta Perry APS

RandyRoberts

Community Advisor

We've always used home for creatives and devs as they're just picking up work and marking it complete. Whereas Project managers, Traffic, Account services have to keep an eye on the project as a whole. In their case a set of dashboards is applicable. Randy Roberts

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StevenHi1

Level 3

HI, I like Anthony's reply above. That being said, I would steer new users away from Home and to their custom dashboards at first, especially during the sensitive adoption phase. In my experience, the Home page adds confusion and a high-effort initial adoption experience. It is much easier IMHO to get new users grounded in only what they need to see and so they can get in and out of the tool quickly without having to start playing with checkbox selector menus to configure their views without them really knowing what they want/need to see yet and how to get there quickly. I have been disappointed in some WF consulting partners' approach to have all new users rely on the Home page right out of the gate. It was a significant part of what caused adoption failure at a number of brands I worked with. It is the easy way out and why I generally dislike most MVP deployment standup approaches. It is worth the time to build detailed and specifically focused custom dashboards for initial launch, tailored to each persona's real needs. The "Land" is stronger and more confident, and the "Expand" will generally be able to happen sooner as optimization is easier. Best Regards, Steve Hirsch Steven Hirsch

AileenTa

Level 5

Hi Kevin, For tasks we use My Work (not sure if that's an option for new customers). We'll transition to Home when the updated filters and sort options for tasks becomes available. We tried dashboards but they are not interactive (i.e. we like Home's one click to view more details on the task or post updates). We have already gone through three other project management tools that were similar to dashboards and my team was very unhappy with those. We use dashboards for reports and views into projects. Aileen Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

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NRYNR

Level 10

Hi Kevin, Dashboards all day, every day, the WFPro way. The native tabs under the hood (updates, tasks, docs, etc.) do their jobs great. However, when it comes to every other area of the app, I've opted for custom dashboards and reports. Why? Because everything I create is now controlled, consistent, and configurable using Workfront's native reporting and dashboard technology. In fact, they're far more configurable than any of the "custom" interfaces because we have text mode, something they're thinking of getting rid of. My users are much more insulated from the UX changes to all the other interfaces occurring today and soon with new experience, which we will not be attempting for anyone until we're prepared/forced to. If you're interested in learning more about the approach, reach out and we'll chat. Thanks, Narayan

Christina_Jarosz

Level 9

Hey Narayan! I see this sentence in your update below and it concerns me: "In fact, they're far more configurable than any of the "custom" interfaces because we have due to text mode, something they're thinking of getting rid of." To clarify : do you mean that Workfront is exploring getting rid of text mode capability?

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