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Top 10 Task Dashboard Templates with Samples and Examples

Mohammed Sameer

Do you remember Tony Stark's JARVIS, a natural-language user interface computer system featured in Iron Man  and other Avengers films? 

Yes, the one that Tony Stark uses to visualize and track the progress of his ongoing projects (missions we all dreamt of being a part of). 

When it comes to project monitoring and analysis, you want an intelligent system to keep track, which is where Task Dashboards Templates come in. But what exactly is a task dashboard, and how can it help you organize your projects?

What’s a Task Dashboard?

A task dashboard displays metrics, statistics, insights, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for specific projects in a single place. It is a unified interface for visualizing, monitoring, optimizing, and improving the performance of your projects. 

It acts as a real-time monitoring tool for your projects, allowing you to determine what's working, what's not, and what changes are required to meet your objectives.

Task Dashboard Templates We Bet On!

Task dashboard templates provide a comprehensive view of your project's performance. Everything is at your fingertips. It is ideal for project managers, teams, individual departments, and business owners looking to track the progress of their projects.

Let’s explore the templates on offer.

Template 1: Task Management Dashboard PPT Template

Tracking project progress is never easy and commands unwavering attention to extract accurate results. Our pre-designed PPT Template makes it easy. Here, you get an overview of time spent on projects, task status, progress, and more. It is a holistic tool that gives you relevant and reliable information at a  glance. Get it now.

Download this template

Template 2: Task Management Dashboard With Project Timeline

With a primary focus on project health and status, this illustrative PPT Dashboard highlights many critical pieces that need your attention as a project manager. You get insights on the budget (divided across resources, hardware, and software) and a project timeline highlighting tasks completed, initiated, and under progress. Download now.

Get this template

Template 3: Task Management Dashboard for Open and Closed Tasks

No organization just runs on one task or project. Multiple teams work on multiple projects (each having several tasks), which makes keeping track of each task impossible. SlideTeam has the perfect solution. Our template helps you monitor open and closed tasks across projects to promote efficiency in your business operations. Get it now.

Grab this template

Template 4: Agile Sprint Dashboard with Task Monitoring

Bring the power of task management to your team with this agile sprint dashboard. Its design is built to offer critical insights into task monitoring to move the needle in your organization. Get a concise report of how your projects fare against your business objectives using this PPT Template. Download now.

Template 5: Task Completion Dashboard with Cost

In the rush of completing tasks and projects before deadlines, the cost incurred is seldom made a priority. With this well-structured dashboard, you can evaluate projects in terms of tasks created vs. completed, emphasizing the total cost that your organization has to bear. Don’t wait; download it now!

Template 6: Scrum Project Task Management Dashboard

Scrum is one of the most effective project management techniques that almost every industry uses. Whether your organization is strengthening its roots in IT, healthcare, e-commerce, or real estate, this template will help you create a task dashboard that supports scrum project management. Use it to analyze and present data on sprint velocity, scope changes, task categorization, and progress in a jiffy. Download it now!

Template 7: Programme Status With Activity And Tasks Dashboard

Scheduling daily activities and completing them as planned is critical to accomplishing your project objectives within deadlines. Project managers know that a single misstep can prove catastrophic, and they can't afford to overlook anything. Use this template to schedule daily activities and closely monitor their progress. It will also help you to clear backlogs, prioritize tasks and compare the status/progress of each activity. Download it now!

Template 8: Task Management Dashboard with Employee Workload

Meeting clients’ quality guidelines for a particular project/task is only possible when your team is motivated and focused. For that, a manager needs to balance the workload and assign a task to the best person suited to complete it. This template helps project and people managers tackle this challenging task with ease. It provides a dashboard that allows you to balance task allocation, capture activity snapshots, track progress, and manage employee workload. Get it now! 

Template 9: Four Phases of Task Completion Percentage Dashboards

Even with Agile project management methodologies; it is not guaranteed that you can divide/break a big project into small, readily achievable tasks. Some tasks need to divide further into sub-task or phases that can be monitored efficiently. This template helps to illustrate such tasks and their phases to your team. Use it to share critical details, success makers, and the progress of each task with colleagues. Download it now! 

Template 10: Project and Task Tracker Report Dashboard

Tracking and managing a project is just the first half of the project manager’s job. The second is to present this information to stakeholders and clients in a digestible and eye-catching manner. Our template helps exhibit information that is understandable in a single glance with the help of graphs, pie charts, and bar charts. It demonstrates task progress, project budget and cost, and pendency to other partners/clients. Get it now! 

Over To You

You're probably eager to get started now that you know what to look for in a task dashboard template.

We completely understand! Having your data ducks in a row is a fantastic feeling.

SlideTeam has customizable task dashboard templates for you, no matter what type of workplace you have. With these, you can bring the power of task dashboards to your team without spending all night fiddling with figures and names.

FAQs on Task Dashboard

What is the purpose of task management.

At its core, task management is monitoring your project's tasks from start to finish. It entails actively making decisions on how to order your tasks with the aim to increase productivity. Project task management involves effectively managing all aspects of a task, such as budget, time, scope, resources, and so on.

What are the five phases of task management?

Here are the five phases of task management:

• Monitoring and Controlling

Managing a project, regardless of its size or scope, is a difficult task. There's a lot that can go wrong, from planning the minutia to dealing with clients' ever-changing demands. It is easier to control the project and the quality of the output when it is divided into manageable stages (like the five listed above), each with its own goals and deliverables.

What are the top benefits of project management dashboards?

Here are the top ways a project management dashboard benefits your organization:

• Enhances Project Coordination
• Increases Awareness of Data Discrepancies
• Enhances Decision-making Speed
• Creates Strategic Insights
• Clear Overview of Project goal status.
• Promotes Scalability.

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Free Project Dashboard Templates

By Kate Eby | April 27, 2022

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We’ve compiled a variety of project dashboard templates that are downloadable, customizable, and easy to use so you can keep all your team members up to speed on project progress.

On this page, you’ll find useful dashboard templates, including a project dashboard template , a construction project dashboard template , an executive project dashboard template , and a project status report dashboard template .

Project Dashboard Template

Download Project Dashboard Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft PowerPoint

This project dashboard template helps you visualize and track task data at a glance by providing a real-time overview of project performance. After you enter the relevant data, the template’s pie charts update to reflect task status and priority percentages so you can better manage your project. Use the color-coded Task Timeline to see pending tasks, as well as start and finish dates for active tasks, to keep your project on schedule and within budget.

For more resources to help you manage project performance and sales, download one of these free Excel dashboard templates .

Construction Project Dashboard Template

Download Construction Project Dashboard Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft PowerPoint

By using this construction project dashboard template, project managers and contractors can get a quick and reliable overview of the tasks required to successfully complete a construction project. This template communicates task statuses and priorities in a snap to keep large and complex construction projects on track. Use the timeline to track task completion and to avoid costly delays.

Agile Project Dashboard Template

Download Agile Project Dashboard Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft PowerPoint

This Agile project dashboard template categorizes tasks by feature and identifies the individuals or teams responsible for each. This template also lists the number of days needed to complete tasks, as well as start and finish dates for active tasks, and allows project managers to visualize the status of various sprints so that teams can stay on top of their Agile projects. 

To learn more about project dashboards, including dos and don’ts, FAQs, and specific types, see this guide on how to create a dashboard in Excel .

IT Project Dashboard Template

Download IT Project Dashboard Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft PowerPoint

This IT project dashboard's Budget chart provides a snapshot overview of budgetary allocations so project managers can better oversee expenses for pending IT tasks. Project managers can customize and prioritize tasks easily with this IT project dashboard template. Use this template to report project and task statuses in a clear, single-page format designed specifically for IT projects.

Executive Project Dashboard Template

Download Executive Project Dashboard Template — Microsoft Excel  

Chart monthly growth percentages for your organization with this executive project dashboard. This template helps teams and project managers visualize changes in revenue, customers, and average order value (AOV), so they can easily communicate project status and health. This executive project dashboard includes sample data to help guide you as you fill in the template with your own project information.

Project Status Report Dashboard Template

Download Project Status Report Dashboard Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft PowerPoint

Project managers can quickly share the current status and completion percentage of projects with this status report dashboard template. Use this template's color-coded graphics to inform project planning and show the timeline, status, and priority percentages for project tasks. This status report dashboard template helps project managers determine which tasks to prioritize and reinforces effective task management.

To learn more about project status reporting and determine which templates are right for your project, see this comprehensive collection of free project status templates .

Simple Project Dashboard Template

Download Simple Project Dashboard Template — Microsoft Excel

Use this simple project dashboard template to share project status and completion percentage and to ensure that you keep your project on track and within budget. This template features a task table, timeline, and status chart to keep team members up to date on project progress. With this simple dashboard template, project managers can list tasks and assignments and mark priorities with an asterisk.

What Is a Project Dashboard Template?

A project dashboard template is a data visualization tool that project managers use to update teams on task progress, project status, and completion percentages. Project dashboards are efficient, accessible, customizable, and communicate project metrics and priorities that inform project planning.

A dashboard template enables project managers to update their teams and other stakeholders on project status throughout the process. Dashboards show essential data needed to prioritize tasks and help keep projects on schedule and within budget.

A project dashboard template typically includes the following components:

• Budget Graph: Graph the money spent compared to the planned budget.
• Pending Items: Show the number and status of pending items like decisions, actions, and change requests.
• Percentage Charts: Visualize task status and priority percentages with color-coded pie charts.
• Project Completion: Provide the project completion percentage for this date.
• Project Date and Status: List this project's date and current status as complete, in progress, overdue, or not started.
• Project Name: Identify the project that needs updating.
• Tasks and Assignments: List project tasks and assignment names.
• Task Priorities and Statuses: Mark high-priority tasks and list task statuses.
• Task Timeline: Chart project task start and completion dates and classify them as in progress, complete, or overdue.

Keep Team Members Apprised of Project Progress with Smartsheet

From simple task management and project planning to complex resource and portfolio management, Smartsheet helps you improve collaboration and increase work velocity -- empowering you to get more done. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover a better way to streamline workflows and eliminate silos for good.

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• Task Management

Organize your team with a task management dashboard

Organizing teams and consistently completing tasks on time throughout an organization cross-functionally is one of the most daunting tasks that managers face, but it’s also one that’s much more achievable with a task management dashboard.

Unfortunately, most managers aren’t currently using one of these dashboards. In fact, one quarter of project managers report that they don’t use software dedicated to project communication and completion, partly because of the hurdles they’d have to jump through to implement it.

While the implementation of such tools can be daunting, it doesn’t have to be. We’ll walk you through how to set up a task management board easily.

Create a task management dashboard using Jotform Tables and Report Builder

You can use tools like Jotform Tables and Report Builder to display digital workflows in an easy-to-understand dashboard in just a few minutes.

• Jotform Tables

Jotform Tables was built to collect data, facilitate communication between team members, and automate repetitive tasks like data entry and updates — all of which are critical for effective task management.

The best part is that you don’t have to start from scratch. There are over 290 templates you can choose from, like this employee task list that acts as an excellent base for a task management dashboard.

This template organizes tasks by row and uses columns to designate a single owner for each task, display each task’s status and due date, and include any relevant notes.

Each column is customizable, and you can add or delete columns to build the task management tool that works best for you.

Once you’ve selected this template, you can input team members, tasks, and deadlines and then start working with the template to easily display the status of each project.

The Status column, highlighted in the screenshot below, is one of the most critical parts of the Jotform dashboard. You can set this column to automatically change as team members complete or move specific items throughout a workflow, meaning that you never need another update meeting.

You can also expand each task to showcase more information about it and include notes for team members to communicate with one another.

You can use this template to keep track of your team, including key information like contact data, team assignments, titles, and more. 

To use Jotform as a ticketing system, team members, employees, or customers can submit tasks using the employee task assignment form linked to the table.

Below is an example that allows the person filling out the template to create new tasks in various stages and assign them to relevant team members.

For a big picture view of whether your team is on track, use the Jotform Report Builder to visualize progress.

Jotform Report Builder

So you’re in charge of managing your team’s tasks. How’s it going? This simple question often has a complex answer, but you can communicate it without a single status update meeting by using visualized charts from the Jotform Report Builder .

Within your Jotform table, you can create a new report view that auto-generates visualizations of data within that table. Here’s an example:

You’ll be able to quickly see how many of your tasks are currently in specific stages, how the workload is distributed among team members, how many tasks have been completed within a given time frame, and much more.

You can publish these reports publicly or privately, so you can share them with the world or just a select group of people. Invite people to view your report directly via email or send them a live URL with real-time data.

Get your team organized with Jotform

Getting started with a task management dashboard is as easy as opening up a Jotform table template and customizing it for your workflow.

Our tables allow your teams to seamlessly collect data or ticketing requests, communicate with other team members cross-functionally, and share your success with stakeholders using automatically generated reports that are beautiful to look at and easy to understand.

Thank you for helping improve the Jotform Blog. 🎉

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How To Create A Project Management Dashboard – Examples & Templates

Table of Contents

1) What Is A Project Management Dashboard?

2) Project Management Dashboard Examples

3) How To Create A Project Management Dashboard?

4) Benefits Of Project Management Dashboards

Projects are one of the cornerstones of a successful business. Sector or industry aside, strategic initiatives focused on specific areas of the business help drive an organization forward, growing, progressing, and evolving year after year. Also, implementing effective management reports will create a data-driven approach to making business decisions and obtaining sustainable business success.

But despite the business-boosting potential (and vital importance) of successfully delivering collaborative strategies, a mere 58% of organizations understand the value of project management to its fullest, according to the global survey conducted by the Project Management Insitute. Armed with this knowledge, you can gain a significant edge on the competition and boost your project exponentially.

By taking an online data visualization approach to handling your company’s strategic activities, big or small, you will make your business more cohesive, collaborative, intelligent, and profitable – and project management dashboards will help you do just that. With the help of modern solutions, you can monitor, optimize, and enhance your projects' performance while increasing the productivity of the whole team, saving countless working hours, and, ultimately, costs.

With these notions in mind, we will explain the fundamental dynamics of project management dashboards, explore the best examples and templates but also dig into the benefits of project dashboards as well as how to create one. But first, we will answer the basic question: what is a project dashboard? 

After reading this article, you will be equipped with the know-how on utilizing modern project management dashboard software and a complete roadmap to get you started in this exciting field of work.

Let’s get started.

What Is A Project Management Dashboard?

A project management dashboard is a data-driven platform that displays metrics, stats, and insights that are specific to a particular project or strategy by presenting a tailored mix of KPIs in one central location in order to benefit the project's performance.

Such a dashboard is perfect for individual departments looking to monitor the success of their projects and campaigns, spot past or present trends, and ultimately contribute to making the organization more intelligent. Project dashboard software is also effective for interdepartmental collaboration due to its flexible access and usability, but we will explain this notion later in our article.

For now, we will look at the top examples from various functions and provide you with details on each.

The Best Project Management Dashboard Examples

To put all of the qualities and features of a PM dashboard into real-world context by exploring these 5 essential project dashboard examples. They provide an overview of projects conducted in IT, marketing but can be used for other projects as well so you can use them as templates. Let's see this in more detail.

1. IT project management dashboard

This project dashboard template is the first of our 5 project dashboard examples, and it focuses on the steps and tasks involved in delivering a very specific strategic IT-based initiative successfully from start to finish.

**click to enlarge**

Regardless of your industry or sector, if the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) want to deliver more value and have a more significant impact on the business, they must align with the company’s core strategic priorities. To achieve this, IT-driven dashboards make priceless tools.

Every IT KPI and visual element in this IT-based project management tool helps to drive efficiency, communication, and cohesion, drilling down into task management and delivery, deadlines, and specific workloads.

By gaining a panoramic view of these insights, it’s possible to make your company’s IT projects more time-efficient, cost-effective, and results-driven than ever before. Let’s explore the core KPIs of this IT dashboard in more detail:

a) Total Tickets vs. Open Tickets: 

This particular KPI helps enhance the overall performance, efficiency, and delivery of your IT projects by carefully monitoring progress and workloads. It will form the foundations of your project’s overall success.

By monitoring this KPI, you can easily spot unresolved tasks and avoid piling them up that will cause issues across the project. You can immediately identify the workload of your team and adjust deadlines or talk to your employees and see if they need more help if needed. That way you can prevent issues within the projected launch data and adjust your tickets accordingly.

b) Projects Delivered on Budget: 

This invaluable KPI offers a detailed, accurate evaluation of your ability to remain within budget limits. If you learn how to stay within budgets, your projects will be all the more effective and efficient.

The costs are a critical part of any project. Of course, unexpected expenses happen all the time and can cause a change of plans and additional optimizations. In that case, it would make sense to create a margin to take those unexpected events into account.

c) Average Handle Time: 

The average handle time KPI provides an invaluable insight into how well you’re handling your projects in terms of timeframes, delivery dates, and deadlines. An essential component of successful project management.

This metric is invaluable for every project manager since you can optimize the future tasks and workload of each team member. In this example above, we can see that some team members struggle to complete their work so you can investigate further and offer additional help.

d) Reopened Tickets:

Reopened tickets will show you how effectively a specific task is handled, saved correctly, and don't get reopened later. It's crucial to monitor this regularly so you can see if your team handles tickets efficiently or they need additional help.

In this specific example above, we can see the overall progress over the course of 12 weeks, the percentage of reopened tickets, and the comparison with the last month. The lower the numbers, the better your ticket management works.

e) Accuracy Estimates:

Another crucial element that successful projects should implement in their monitoring processes is the accuracy estimates. Team members estimate how much time will it take them to complete the task. If it takes longer, you need additional adjustments.

In our example above, we can see that some developers didn't estimate in the best way possible - Thomas' calculations are missed by 1/5 while others are above 90% which is generally a good result. These estimates can be implemented in various projects, including marketing where agencies need time estimation for their clients.

Speaking of marketing, we will now take a closer look at how agencies can upgrade their project performance with the help of modern dashboard solutions.

2. Marketing performance dashboard for agencies

Without effective, target-driven marketing strategies, your business would never grow or evolve. This marketing dashboard template focuses specifically on your organization’s promotional initiatives. Agencies use it to monitor and manage the performance of multiple campaigns and projects for their clients in order to create comprehensive marketing reports used in this fast-paced industry.

The marketing performance dashboard is an invaluable project dashboard template as it gets straight to the heart of the agency's promotional campaigns’ cost-efficiency, target-meeting capabilities, levels of engagement, and click-through rates.

This marketing dashboard provides an ideal overview of all your campaign performance data across every relevant marketing channel. Moreover, it showcases all of the insights you need to decide where to place your marketing budget in the most informed, strategic way possible so that you can present your results to your clients quickly and efficiently. Let’s glimpse at the KPIs that make this integral dashboard tick.

Primary KPIs:

• Click-Through-Rate (CTR): An essential marketing metric, your click-through rate offers a clear-cut indication of how much your promotional content, assets, and communications are resonating with your target audience.  
• Cost-per-Click (CPC): This is an essential marketing metric as it offers a comprehensive overview of how much your various promotional ad spend is costing on each channel and how effective each activity is to the success of your project.
• Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA): By understanding how much your various promotional initiatives are costing you in terms of acquiring a new customer or conversion, you can make strategic tweaks that can save you money while boosting your success. Your CPA will help you do just that.

3. Project Controlling dashboard

Project controlling is a central component of project management as it provides important support to make sure that all project goals are met. It does this by comparing the actual status of the goals with the expected ones in order to keep close track of the values and find out if something is lacking. The monitored areas include budgeting, costs, scheduling, and performance progress. Let’s take a deeper look into it with our project controlling dashboard which provides a bigger picture to all details related to the planning and performance of a project. 

The dashboard starts by indicating the client, project status, and time period. All this information can be filtered depending on what project or time period you want to visualize. Under this information, we get 3 key figures related to costs and revenue, each of them displaying the actual and planned values. This lets you quickly visualize if something is not performing as expected and find solutions immediately.  Next, we see a gauge chart that provides an overview of the tasks by status, next to a table breaking down tasks in more detail. Each of them is categorized with a level of risk and different colors as well as a completion percentage and the name of the person responsible for it. Having this kind of detailed information at hand, in a way that is visually appealing, can help everyone to quickly understand the status of tasks at a glance and keep the project as efficient as possible. 

Finally, the dashboard offers three metrics related to the planned and completed hours of work in the project. We get a total of the hours worked divided into billable and non-billable, hours worked on each task and a detailed breakdown of hours of the last 8 months. 

Primary KPIs: 

• Total revenue & costs: When a project is in its initial stages of evaluation an expected revenue and costs are calculated. It is important to measure these numbers closely during the development of the project and be aware if the values are higher or lower than expected as this can cause great problems for the completion of the project. 
• Tasks by status: An important role in project controlling is to be in charge of a team. Taking a closer look at the tasks by status and the person or team who is responsible for them, lets you tackle any delays and find solutions to improve them. Having this kind of information also allows team members to see how other tasks that come before them are doing. 
• Timesheet summary : In a project as well as in any other business activity time means money. For this reason, a timesheet summary is an important metric to track as it allows project managers to understand the time resources being spent on each task. Hours are divided by billable and non-billable which in other words means the worked and the to-be-worked hours. 

4. Brand analysis project dashboard

Market research and data analytics go hand in hand. When it comes to presenting survey results, market research agencies often rely on static presentations and deliver each project’s results in traditional slides and tables that cannot provide immediate answers to all of the questions asked. Our next project management dashboard template focuses on the in-depth brand analysis project that provides interactive capabilities and makes a project presentation much easier and more effective both for agencies and clients.

The abundance of questions, analysis processes, and presenting results oftentimes cause market research agencies a long and tedious process to manage such projects in the most efficient way. A project management dashboard tool can easily create a clear overview of survey results, steps taken, and visualize the complete project with a simple, yet effective dashboard designer . Let's take a closer look at the KPIs that make this agency project so invaluable.

• Unaided Brand Awareness: A direct survey that requires active thinking from people you have interviewed and measures the brand recall with an open question. Interviewees give the list of names of all the brands that come into their minds, without any biased or helping hand.
• Aided Brand Awareness: After an open question, it makes sense to evaluate how consumers recognize your brand but this metric doesn't require active thinking from interviewed people. If you see a higher percentage of recognizing one brand over the other, consumers probably paid attention to delivered campaigns.
• Brand Image: Impressions of consumers put their perception into adjectives and ideas that they have connected with a specific brand. To put this into perspective, it makes sense to compare your brand image with competitors and see if they perceive your brand according to your marketing campaigns.

5. Google Ads dashboard for SEA campaign projects

If you decide on a marketing project with Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords), you need a clear overview of the stats, metrics, budgets, and overall campaign performance. A project status Google Ads dashboard such as the one below will prove to be beneficial for your SEA projects and enable you to focus on the most important data and results that it brought. Let's see this through an example:

If you're a campaign manager, whether in-house or agency side, you need to take a closer look at each campaign's performance in order to deliver successful advertising projects. In the heart of this dashboard lie conversions, both for individual campaigns and aggregated, but you can also see the device breakdown and spending budget.

• Conversion Rate: This metric will show you the level of performance of the desired target action (white-paper download, e-mail subscription, or product purchase, e.g.) and you should take into account that not all actions will deliver a high percentage of conversions. An e-mail subscription conversion will behave differently than a product purchase, for example.
• Cost per Conversion: To see how your budget performed on a campaign level, a cost per conversion will tell you which campaigns are most effective. It makes sense to compare different campaigns in order to see how to spend your budget in the most efficient way.
• Budget Attainment: This metric is a general controlling figure in your marketing projects. A dashboard for project management will certainly implement this KPI in order to see how exactly the budget targets are implemented.

These project management KPI dashboards are applicable in various departments, you can simply adjust them based on your project requirements and deliver the best possible results with the help of modern management reporting tools .

To take your project control dashboard to the next level, we will now focus on the tips to create such dashboards and enable you to improve your projects, no matter the size of your company or department you work in.

How To Create A Project Management Dashboard?

It’s clear that a project management dashboard is a powerful online data analysis tool. But this intuitive data-driven software is only effective if it has the right attributes, qualities, and functionality for the job. To help steer your success, here are the 8 main tips you should focus on while creating such a dashboard:

1. Take into account digestibility

When you're in the middle of delivering a project, chances are the pressure will be on, which means that to hit your targets and get things done, gaining instant access to the right information is paramount. Any robust project management tool will be visually digestible, well designed, and serve up insights in a way that lets you extract value from them in seconds.

2. Make sure to focus on usability

In addition to digestibility (or ‘scannability,’ as it’s sometimes referred to), it’s essential for project management dashboards to be completely user-friendly. Not only should everyone within the organization be able to navigate your online dashboards with relative ease, but it shouldn’t take technical staff to intervene and conduct data-driven tasks on a regular basis. In short, any project dashboard worth its salt will allow all departments to work with the data that’s most important to their role in a particular project, without fuss.

3. Choose the right set of KPIs

No matter the type of project you're working on, you need to set proper key performance indicators. Each of your data sources will have specific metrics you need to track. By utilizing a dynamic dashboard for project management, metrics can be easily consolidated into a single point of access. While there are numerous examples that you can select from, only a number of KPIs will make sense for your specific project. From the specific project status, team performance, and specified assignments to marketing agency campaign management, it's important to select a few KPIs that will convey a data story and enable you to drill into details, if needed.

4. Benefit from strategic & operational dashboards 

We already showed you a project controlling dashboard in our list of examples. This area of project management can also be divided into two types of dashboards which can be operational or strategic. On one hand, operational dashboards aim to keep a record of the current status of an ongoing project in aspects such as costs, deadlines, and resources. On the other hand, strategic project dashboards aim to monitor the project as a whole, making sure that is economical and efficient as well as identify risks. Taking both approaches into consideration is fundamental in your management process as this will ensure a successful project in the end. 

5. Customize each element on your dashboard

It’s essential for your project management dashboard to be fully customizable. By customizing your BI dashboard , you’ll be able to set KPIs that are most relevant to your project while integrating platforms and services that are most useful to your activities and choosing designs or layouts that will prove the most helpful to you and your colleagues. The important notion here is not to overburden the dashboard with information that's not relevant, too many colors, or metrics that wouldn't even fit into your story. As mentioned earlier, choosing the right KPIs as well as customizing the design and the position of each element will prove to be an efficient way to present your project and the performance of the same.

6. Automate your reporting processes to save time

One of the last elements when creating a project management visualization or dashboard is the capability to schedule and automate your reporting processes. No matter if you need a daily, weekly, or monthly overview, simple automation will save you countless hours since you won't be required to manually update the data or manage multiple spreadsheets at once. A professional BI dashboard software will enable you to focus only on your data and automate tedious tasks of creating and delivering reports on a regular basis. This is extremely important in project management as many different angles need to be aligned at all times.

7. Extract actionable insights and learn from the process 

It might seem like an obvious point, but it never hurts to repeat it. Once you have a fully functional project management dashboard you need to go one step further from just monitoring metrics and extract actionable insights that will enable you to optimize several processes as well as find improvement opportunities. Once your project is done you can analyze the data and see what could've been done differently or better and prepare strategies for your next projects. 

8. Use professional project management dashboard software

Professional software will enable you to consolidate all of our mentioned points into a single, unified point of access where you can customize, automate, and choose a project status dashboard template if you don't have time to design one yourself. If you need to create more user-specific content, the software can provide you with the possibility to deliver embedded dashboards so you can easily implement them into your own application, website, or intranet, for example. But not only, as another key attribute of project-based software is portability. A robust data dashboard will offer its users access to a variety of media, from desktop to mobile app, providing fully optimized, user-friendly access to essential project data 24/7 no matter where you may be in the world. A simple connection to the Internet is all you need and you can access your project management software dashboard with just a few clicks.

To benefit even more from various solutions you can implement within your project, you can explore our topic on the best enterprise applications .

These are just a few tips you should take into account when utilizing all the possibilities that a project management tracking tool can deliver based on your parameters in order to fully take advantage of creating such a dashboard.

As we focused on the definitions, examples, and tips to create a successful dashboard for project management, now we will focus on the why. By explaining the benefits of creating a PM dashboard, you will know why these data-driven dashboards are essential for modern management efforts.

Top 6 Benefits Of Project Management Dashboards

Dashboards for project management come with a host of benefits to any modern organization regardless of industry or niche. Here we explain the most prominent ones:

1. Communication & cohesion

The key to successful project management is communication . If everyone involved in a particular strategy or initiative understands their role, has access to the insights they need to perform their tasks to the fullest potential, and understands the data before them, your project is likely to exceed expectations and bust targets. Working with project dashboard software that can create extensive analytical reports will bestow your strategic activities with all of these key attributes.

2. Centralized data

In today’s digital business landscape, projects can become complicated due to the sheer number of platforms or touchpoints to consider, coupled with the significant piles of data available at any one time.

Project dashboards present and visualize the data that’s 100% relevant to a particular project, and as every insight is available in one central location, it’s possible to gain swift access to all of the insights or metrics that are integral to your project without logging into other applications or platforms. And this is the essence of what is a project dashboard – time and money saved.

3. Foster collaboration 

Projects usually involve several departments and teams performing conjoint tasks. In many cases, a team can not start a new task before other areas have completed theirs. Keeping everyone in the loop regarding the timing and progress of the project is not easy. However, all this drama can be easily left behind by implementing powerful project management dashboards and BI reporting solutions into your business. Having all the relevant information together in one place allows everyone to be informed about the status of the different stages of the project and enables interdepartmental collaboration which leads to a much more productive environment. 

4. Targeted information

By working with a specific KPI template that is relevant to the task at hand, a live dashboard makes it possible to track, measure, and improve your performance from start to finish.

Moreover, by gaining the ability to compare digestible visual data, you can spot trends, capitalize on strengths, identify weaknesses, and improve the success of your projects significantly.

5. Utilization of real-time data

While an online reporting tool provides you with many different angles from which you can monitor your projects, the important point to stress is the possibility to use real-time data. Whether you need an immediate answer to your business question or you simply want to have the latest information without manually updating it, these dashboards will enable you to constantly pull real-time information. For example, if you want to track how much time is spent on a specific part of the project, real-time data will ensure you have the right information at the right time.

6. A holistic overview of the complete project

Whether you're working on a social media or (already explained) IT project, you need to gain a complete overview of the tasks, budgets, milestones, strategic or operational KPIs that you need to track. In the past, you could create a traditional report and work with historical data in order to generate insights for the future, but today you can build a modern and effective social media report or dashboard, for example, and have all your touchpoints in a clear, concise visual overview. This will provide you with a quality backbone to holistically view different angles and ensure sustainable project development and overview.

Key Takeaways Project Management Dashboards 

Indeed, communication, intelligence, choosing proper data analysis methods from the very foundations of managing, and delivering a successful project from start to finish, are the most important notions you need to consider in project management.

We’ve covered the definition of project management dashboards, gave you some industry examples, and tips and tricks on how you can create them. We hope by now you have a clear understanding of the power of these reporting tools and are ready to start benefiting from them. 

If you want all of your projects to surpass your goals and drive your business to dizzying new heights, project management dashboards are without a shadow of a doubt the way forward. Embrace the power of project management techniques, and great things will happen for you and your business.

If you want to start building your own dashboards and take control over your projects, you can try our software for a 14-day trial , completely free!

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How to build a custom project management dashboard

March 15, 2024 - 10 min read

When your team is working on a complex project , you need a centralized dashboard system that blows basic methods like spreadsheets and shared documents out of the water. 

Your dashboard is the central source of truth for everything your team does. It should give you up-to-date, at-a-glance information to help you make data-driven decisions and respond to issues as they develop. 

To ensure you’re working with an overview you can rely on, it pays to choose a powerful, customizable dashboard tool that pulls from real-time data about your team’s plan, progress, and results. This way, you get a complete overview of your project status , your team’s responsibilities, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you use to measure success.

Reminding your team to update an Excel spreadsheet or move a Trello card when they finish a task is rarely enough. Here’s why:

• You can’t be sure you’re looking at the latest information because the process is manual and easy to overlook.
• You won’t be able to include all the details about your task progress in one place. 
• Your team can’t filter the information specific to them, which makes it more challenging to interpret and act on. 

In contrast, the customizable dashboards in our project management platform — Wrike — give you total, real-time, personalized visibility of your entire project. 

Wrike has just introduced new dashboards as part of our next-gen analytics launch. Read more about the exciting new capabilities here .

Why switch to project management dashboard software?

The limitations of template spreadsheets and basic project management tools like Trello stem from the fact they’re separate from the platform where your team does their work. 

You might have already found a slick spreadsheet template or built a multistage workflow for your team. But these tools only give you a snapshot of certain parts of your project at the moment when someone last opened and updated the tracking tool. 

The project information can lag, and there’s plenty of room for human error. Plus, as your project scales up and you accumulate more sheets or more cards, it gets more and more difficult to find the information you need.

Unless you’re working on a very brief project or with a very small team, the basic tools are no substitute for a true dashboard that centralizes real-time data on every aspect of your project. With this information (which you can bring together in a Wrike custom dashboard ) you get everything you need to make informed decisions and manage your team effectively. 

• Draw from the latest data on your project’s progress. Wrike’s dashboards automatically update whenever one of your project tasks changes status. This includes task dependencies and notifications for assignees and approvers. Everyone stays informed, and there’s no need to break your flow to manually move a task or write a message. 
• Monitor multiple aspects of the project in one place. With Wrike, you can tailor the information you see in your dashboard. Whether you want to view your most important KPIs , monitor what every subsection of your team is up to, or make it easy to jump into your most important tasks, you can build a user-friendly dashboard to make it happen. 
• Provide personalized views for managers and team members. A spreadsheet can be a shared reference point, but a dynamic dashboard translates that project data into a personal, prioritized list of tasks that shows what everyone needs to act on next. 
• Power true collaboration. While a basic task management tool can give you the headlines, the best project management dashboards make it easy to find the information beyond the task title, including who’s accountable. This is how you keep everyone on the same page and boost collaboration across your team.

When you gather all the information on your project’s current status in a central location, you make it easier for everyone to achieve their goals. 

Goodwood ’s operations team used “three different notebooks with their to-do lists for each event.” Now, they have one Wrike dashboard to manage and monitor tasks. They’ve saved money by anticipating mistakes and slashed the amount of time they spend on internal emails. 

Likewise, Sköna switched from a system of “tedious” production sheets to Wrike to bridge the gap between their international offices. Jenny Sagström said that Wrike is “rigid enough to help people prioritize their work, but also has a huge allowance for setting it up the way that best fits your individual work style.”

Build your team’s perfect dashboard with Wrike 

Wrike does what basic project management dashboard solutions can’t do: it draws the latest data from all over your project and presents it in the way that best supports your work. 

You can create unique dashboards for your project managers and departments or personal dashboards for every team member. Wrike’s enhanced, intelligent dashboards are completely customizable . However you choose to configure them, they draw their information from the shared folders and workflows that form the central source of truth for your project.

Everyone has access to the latest updates. Everyone shares the most recent version of a resource or asset. And everyone has the information they need to collaborate, prioritize, and take ownership of the project.  

Setting up Wrike can take a little more elbow grease than a basic project management spreadsheet, but it’s worth it for the control and flexibility you get in return. 

Let’s go through the process, step by step. 

1. Create a new dashboard from your Wrike homepage 

To set up a dashboard, just open Wrike and click Dashboards , Create Dashboards , + New Dashboard . 

Name the dashboard and assign it to the workspace where you’ll use it (for example, making a dedicated dashboard for your creative team or creating one accessible to everyone on the project). Then, click Create. 

2. Add prebuilt widgets to draw data for your dashboard

Next, put the dashboard into action with widgets. Widgets filter the latest information in your workspace. They put together an at-a-glance overview while still ensuring you have all the data you need to strategize and align your work — even across multiple teams. 

You can add widgets to a dashboard to cover every aspect you want to monitor. The customizable filters can display all your key metrics in one place, so you’ll never have to cross-reference the information in different tools. And thanks to Wrike’s automated workflow systems , your dashboard widgets will update in real time whenever someone on your team marks a task “Complete,” “Resolved,” or “Ready for review.” 

• My tasks , to track all active tasks assigned to you and ensure none of your deliverables are overlooked. 
• My tasks this week , where you filter the tasks you need to get to right away.  
• Starred tasks , to identify the jobs your team has highlighted, get straight to the point, and avoid unnecessary bottlenecks. 
• My pending file reviews , to show people with approval authority their next tasks and keep your assets moving through your workflow. 
• Activity stream, to show all the project updates in chronological order. 
• Pivot tables, to save time by summarising large datasets into tables you can use to identify trends and anticipate questions ahead of big meetings. 

For example, it’s easy to set up widgets to monitor KPIs like:  

• Overdue tasks : Flagging areas where your team is behind can show how effectively you’re using your team’s capacity (and help you act quickly to minimize the negative impact of a missed deadline). 
• Ticket status : Measuring the number of tickets open, successfully solved, or reopened gives you an idea of how effectively your team is working. 
• Conversion rates : Tracking the number of leads at each stage of your sales funnel helps you calculate your costs and optimize your sales techniques. 
• New customers : Displaying your quarterly or annual signups monitors your growth and makes it easy to compare your previous numbers. 
• Employee success : Showing sales vs. sales quotas, or the number of issues each team member solves can show you who’s on target and who needs more support from their manager. 

When you have this information at your fingertips, you can analyze your work from multiple angles in a single view. It’s easier to make decisions about everything from resource allocation to managing potential risks, so you can improve your team’s performance, demonstrate your impact, and maximize your output. 

For example, Brief Media has increased on-time project delivery by 50% since it started working with Wrike. 

Project Manager Courtnie McKone describes the dashboards her team uses to communicate. They’ve created a sales dashboard, a marketing dashboard , and a creative dashboard with workflow tags and shared folders. This keeps everyone in the loop and gives the whole team access to the resources they need to share. 

Before Wrike, they used a mix of WuFoo, Basecamp, Pivotal Tracker, and Google Docs. Now, as McKone says,

“You just have to look on one page, and you find every project you need to find. It’s less overwhelming.” 

Create personal dashboards for everyone in your team 

We’ve already touched on the benefits of using personalized dashboards alongside project dashboards. Don’t forget, with Wrike, every member of your team can have a place to view their personal notifications, list their upcoming tasks, and see the work that needs their attention immediately. 

Personal dashboards are one of the biggest advantages of choosing Wrike over a spreadsheet or a less sophisticated project management tool. 

While basic tools can give teams a shared overview, personal dashboards translate the information into an individual perspective. The data is drawn from the same central truth source the whole team works with, but it’s filtered to show the tasks that need their attention most.

Plus, when they click + Widget, they can choose their own filters to optimize their dashboard, which helps them do their best work every day. 

3. Share the dashboard with your team 

Dashboards come alive when everyone on your team can actively work with them. Wrike takes a dashboard from a static snapshot of your project’s recent status to an interactive tool that dynamically supports your team as they collaborate. 

Chosen Foods found success with Wrike’s custom workflows and shared dashboards. Kaizen Manager Jessica Wooding said that she was “ instantly able to remove four hours of meetings a week ” when the team switched, and they refocused the time they saved on education opportunities for the team, further improving their process. 

To share a Wrike dashboard, go to Share and type the name of the user who needs access. 

There are three permission levels to choose from: 

• Full , for total access to the dashboard. These users can rename or delete a dashboard if they need to. You might use this option for new personal dashboards as well as team leaders. 
• Editor , so the user can change the widgets and filters in a shared dashboard and help a team view the data differently.
• Read Only , where users can view a shared dashboard to keep themselves updated but can’t make changes. 

You can even create a public link to a dashboard to share the information with people outside your company. 

For security and data protection, you can unshare a dashboard at any time. You can also keep sensitive information (like your project’s finances) on dashboards visible in management or accounting spaces but not to the whole organization. 

3 project management dashboard templates Wrike teams love

Wrike teams can build their workspace from the ground up or start with a customizable template workspace that includes preconfigured project management dashboards. 

Using a template saves time and simplifies complex processes from the very beginning of your project so your team can dive straight into their work. 

You can even use multiple templates for the same project. This is a great option for work shared across teams. It’s easy for different departments or subteams to create project dashboard templates that suit the tasks they’re responsible for without compromising on collaboration. 

Your design team could start with a template for creative asset production , which includes specific project workflows for brochures and infographics. In contrast, your IT team might add a risk assessment or security template to their workspace to cover their essential tasks. 

However a team sets up a template, you can be sure they’re sharing resources seamlessly and staying completely up to date. 

Getting started with template workspaces is easy. To create a new space, select + , and then Space . The Preview option shows you more about the template, and then Select gets you started. 

1. Marketing campaign template 

• Campaign requests , so you can monitor all incoming tasks
• Critical campaign milestones , so you can ensure you are on track to hit each deadline
• Active campaigns, so you can systematically check the latest information on all your ongoing campaigns
• Overdue tasks, so you can quickly identify tasks falling behind schedule and assign them to someone who can bring them up to date

This gives you the overview you need to help optimize your current campaigns and lets you monitor the new campaign requests that tell you how your business is growing. 

This template also goes far beyond the project status dashboard. Your marketing team will find even more tools to help them plan and execute new campaigns. 

• Request forms: Dynamic request forms , like the campaign request form included in this template, are a more efficient way to begin new tasks. When someone fills in the form, it automatically sets up a new campaign as a task in your workflow, assigns it to the right person, and gives them all the information they need to get started. 
• Gantt Chart view: This template includes a Gantt chart view to give you a complete visual breakdown of your campaign’s timeline and milestones, including task dependencies. This is a far more informative style of task and data visualization than a simple checklist, and Wrike’s automations mean you’re always planning with the latest task status information in view.
• Campaign calendars: You can add content calendars to your workspace with start and end dates for each campaign. Campaigns (like brand launches or holiday sales) can be color-coded by type or platform. Whenever something changes with the planned dates, the content calendar updates automatically. 

2. Software development template

With Wrike’s software development template , your development team has instant access to all the dashboards they need for bug management, sprint execution, and backlog grooming. 

As standard, your dashboards in this workspace will focus on your backlog and incoming tasks so your project team can plan the most efficient way to work on the deliverables. 

Our software development workspace includes a Kanban project management board to make this even easier. This view — where tasks appear as cards that move through your workflow towards your project goals — organizes your jobs by priority and accountability. 

Kanban views are ideally suited to development teams. Dragging and dropping tasks from the backlog is a simple way to set up the tasks for your next sprint. 

For evaluating your work, this template also includes two progress reports to track the KPIs for your development projects, including an epics report and a report on bugs and user stories . Using the information in these reports, you can monitor the work your team is producing and hone your process for the future. 

The Arvig team plans their scrums using Wrike dashboards, and they’ve noted a massive increase in efficiency and speed. Shaun Carlson, Director of R&D and Continuous Innovation, said,

“Projects that had taken nine months to complete now take 16 weeks. Today, we can manage 250% more projects, which means we can be more responsive, increasing customer satisfaction.”

3. Professional services management template 

The professional services management template supports teams (for example, in agencies ) as they plan and deliver work to their clients. 

It includes: 

• Task tracking features to keep you on schedule 
• Time tracking features to keep you on budget 
• Centralized folders to manage your team’s assets and efficiently share deliverables with stakeholders

With this template, your project dashboard organizes your tasks into initiation, project planning, delivery, and closeout phases. You populate the dashboard with tasks assigned to your team and define the milestones. 

The default view is a Gantt chart to show your team how their tasks fit into the bigger picture. Alongside their personalized dashboards with their workload and notifications, this helps them effectively prioritize their work. 

The latest information on your billable hours appears on your project dashboard, so you can calculate your costs per lead or task and bill more accurately for future projects. 

Regency Lighting values this visibility. It bills most of its work on a fixed rate, so Wrike’s time tracking record helps it to price correctly. Jeremy Ames, Director of Design, said Wrike has made it “so much easier” for the team compared to filtering through a spreadsheet.

“It keeps them very much in tune and on top of making sure that every day, right in front of them is what needs to get done, when it needs to get done.” 

For powerful, personalized project dashboards, try Wrike 

When you work within Wrike, you can build successful project management dashboards that monitor every detail of your work. You can be sure your decision making is based on the very freshest data, and drill down into the information when you need to find out more. 

Wrike’s dashboard systems have benefits far beyond your management team. By displaying the latest updates on your shared tasks (and sending automated notifications when something changes), everyone on your team has a place to plan, prioritize, and collaborate on their work. 

Join global teams like Goodwood, Sköna, Chosen Foods, Bright Media, and Arvig. Book a demo today to find out how Wrike can empower your team.   

Vladimir Bugay

Vladimir is VP of the Research and Development Unit at Wrike. An experienced CTO and tech entrepreneur, he has played a key role in the success of numerous data companies. Before Wrike, he worked at Prognoz and Knoema, leading the development of their BI platform and search engine respectively. More recently, he oversaw the launch of Wrike’s new dashboards.

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How to use a project dashboard to keep your team on track

Lucid Content

Reading time: about 5 min

Project management is all about juggling: people, data, expectations, resources—you name it. At any given moment, a project manager has to know where each “ball” is, where it’s going, and where it needs to be. And when you’re dealing with million-dollar budgets, impatient shareholders, angsty developers, and tight deadlines, this is easier said than done.

To keep everything on track, project managers need all the help they can get. One of the best ways to track and measure ongoing progress is by using a project management dashboard.

Learn how project dashboards improve project outcomes and how you can make them.

What is a project dashboard?

Similar to the dashboard in your car, a project dashboard provides at-a-glance data and metrics about the current status of your project. With all the key performance metrics presented in one place, project managers can more effectively measure the triple constraints of scope, budget, and time.

However, unlike a car’s dashboard, which tracks the same key metrics (e.g., speed, RPM, gas mileage, MPG, etc.) from vehicle to vehicle, project management dashboards are more flexible and can vary significantly depending on the project, team, and tracking needs.

As the project manager, you’ll have to decide what KPIs you want to track and how you want that data delivered. Some common data presentations include:

• Graphs and charts
• Text-based lists
• Interactive visualizations

However the data is delivered, there are significant benefits to keeping an updated project dashboard in your management toolbox.

Benefits of a project dashboard

Project dashboards make project management easier and more efficient because they present continuous performance data at a glance. When managers and stakeholders have access to their project’s progress, health, and projections, they experience significant benefits, including:

• Greater convenience
• Increased efficiency
• Improved accuracy
• Better communication
• Persuasive evidence

Keep in mind that a project management dashboard isn’t just for the project manager. When all stakeholders have access, each team member and decision maker can stay abreast of developments, needs, and progress on both a high- and granular level. Everyone stays on the same page, improving communication across teams and individuals.

Plus, with an at-a-glance progress report, leaders and team members don’t have to waste time slogging through disparate data sets and mocking up new reports. By the time they’ve manually compiled all the data and put it into a cohesive report, the data is already old. Read: virtually useless.

Instead, project dashboards simplify this work by compiling the data in one place with real-time updates. This means less time wasted on reporting and more time focused on completing project tasks and driving the project forward.

Additionally, displaying key data in one place helps managers give more compelling presentations with persuasive visual evidence for everyone to see. Clear evidence makes it easier to get stakeholder buy-in on crucial decisions. For example, if the data shows that the project is over budget, the project manager can more easily persuade decision-makers to approve a project pivot or adjustment.

Tracking project dashboard metrics

The success of a project often depends on the quality and accuracy of the metrics and KPIs you track. So what should go on your dashboard? That depends. Here are a few data types you can visualize on a project dashboard:

• Business intelligence (BI)
• Task status
• Project progress
• Team workload
• Individual task status
• Project risks and changes
• Hours (billable and unbilled)
• Critical actions

What metrics you track on your project dashboard will depend on the project and your goals for the dashboard.

For instance, do you need to quickly see what tasks are completed or where there are bottlenecks in the schedule? Or do you want to track patterns or identify potential opportunities? These questions will help you determine what kind of dashboard you need and what functionality and features you should look for.

Important features in a project dashboard

There are many project management dashboard systems out there. Whether you create your own or work on a specific platform, you should look for these features in a dashboard:

• Scannability
• Real-time updates
• Customization
• Shareability
• Intuitive navigation

To get the most value out of your dashboard, data should be presented in an easy-to-digest format and on a platform with multiple sharing options. Remember: Project dashboards are not just for the managers, but for the team to track their progress. If they can’t easily access the dashboard or if it isn’t customized to the project’s data needs, it will go to waste.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, look for dashboards that offer real-time data updates. In the world of product development and project management, data can change within hours and even minutes.

If you have to manually import, export, and convert data from one platform to another before your dashboard can render it, your data will fall behind, leading to inefficiencies at best and false assumptions and critical errors in decision making at worst.

Give your team and your project the best chance of success by using project dashboards that deliver the best data when you need it, how you need it.

Using Lucidchart for visual project management

Lucidchart gives project managers the flexibility and customization they need to craft elegant data visualizations that not only look professional but can keep up with leading project dashboard software.

Take advantage of features such as:

• Actions : Make static elements interactive. With Actions, you can toggle between layers, link to external content, or hop from one page of a document to another.
• Conditional formatting: Set rules to easily interpret that data and monitor the health of your company or systems.
• Real-time collaboration: Keep data up to date, improve team communication, and reduce data delays and inaccuracies.  
• Zapier integration : Bring live data into Lucidchart, link it to process flowcharts and other powerful diagrams, and monitor your metrics in context. 

Now that you have the tips and tools at your disposal, it's time to get started. Build out a project dashboard to track your progress all the way to a successful outcome.

Learn how you can create your own dashboard in Lucidchart.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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20 Best Task Management Software Tools to Elevate Your Workflows [2024 Edition]

Sarah Burner

ClickUp Contributor

May 8, 2024

Is your personal or team workload spiraling out of control? We’ve all been there! What’s worse is the anxiety-inducing feeling of dread that follows when you have a bunch of unattended tasks, gradually leading to a lack of motivation . In fact, recent research reveals that 41% of workers find heavy workloads to be the main cause of workplace stress. 😖

However, more often than not, it’s not the amount of work that makes you or your employees feel overwhelmed—it’s poor task management. For instance, setting unreasonable deadlines or delegating tasks without considering team availability may lead people to burnout faster than you can blink. 

Luckily, using the right task management software can help you prevent this chaos! We’re here to introduce you to the 20 best task management software that can assist you in assigning tasks and optimizing priorities effectively in 2024. Learn about their key features, limitations, and pricing before you pick your ideal task manager tool. 🌻

What Should You Look for in a Task Management Tool?

• 1. ClickUp—best overall project & task management software

2. Asana—best for remote teams

3. jira—best for experienced professionals, 4. monday.com—best for marketing and pmo teams, 5. trello—best for small teams, 6. hive—best task management software for team collaboration, 7. meistertask—best for kanban task management, 8. ntask—best task management software for scheduling, 9. zenhub—best for software teams, 10. zoho projects—best for complex project management, 11. activecollab—best for personalized task management experience, 12. wrike—best for workflow management, 13. todoist—best for teams on a budget, 14. proofhub—best for task tracking, 15. smarttask—best for managing multiple projects, 16. hubspot (hubspot task management)—best for crm tasks, 17. paymo—best for client tasks and bookings, 18. timecamp—best for time tracking and billing tasks, 19. any.do—best for creating to-do lists, 20. smartsheet—best for spreadsheet-style task management.

Task management software helps identify, monitor, and manage tasks efficiently . It goes beyond a simple to-do list and offers features to let you collaborate on elaborate workflows for effective goal completion .

Naturally, the best task management software allows you to set deadlines, prioritize tasks , track progress, and adjust schedules with ease. Other useful functionalities include:

• Flexibility: A good task management software has a user-friendly interface and runs smoothly on all major operating systems across devices, allowing you more control over your work
• Time tracking: Choose a task management solution that lets you improve your time management through seamless time tracking
• Task automation: The best task management software lets you automate recurring admin tasks, leaving everyone more time to focus on cognitively demanding, high-level assignments
• Communication support: If you’re running a team, look for a tool that supports productive task-related discussions, file sharing, and instant announcements
• Reporting and analytics: Quality task management software provides reporting features to record and analyze information (like clock-in/clock-out data, absence, and overtime hours) for productivity analysis, invoicing, and payroll management
• Integration with other tools: Pick a task management system that integrates with other software you use, like messaging apps , project management software , and writing assistants

20 Best Task Management Software for Balanced Task Planning and Execution

There are tons of task management apps available on the market, but they’re not all cut from the same cloth—for instance, some are versatile tools, while others focus on specific functions like task dependencies.

We’ve chosen the 20 best task management software to help you find the perfect app for your business needs. These are expert-vetted options, cherry-picked after considering criteria like feature set and affordability.

Let’s dive in! 🧐

1. ClickUp —best overall project & task management software

Why end with a bang when we can start with one? 💥

Introducing ClickUp —the best task management solution for individuals, professionals, and teams. It’s not just us; even G2 considers it to be the best-rated task management and team task management software , ranking it #1 in 15+ competitive categories in 2024!

What makes ClickUp click is its AI-enabled, end-to-end support for managing tasks and priorities, monitoring progress, and staying productive.

Leverage ClickUp Tasks for task planning, scheduling, and tracking within a centralized hub. Easily categorize team tasks by type, set Custom Task Status from To Do to Done , and use Custom Fields to set deadlines, add assignees, and track details. For each task assignment, you can: 

• Add links and comments to centralize contextual knowledge and discussions
• Specify task dependencies, subtasks, and checklists
• Use @mentions and action items to delegate tasks and share updates

ClickUp’s Calendar View comes with drag-and-drop capabilities for granular task planning. You can also ClickUp’s Recurring Tasks to schedule routine stuff, like meetings and sprint retrospectives, and visualize or adjust your day-to-day on the Calendar.

Stay on top of task lists with ClickUp Reminders that you can create from any task comments or notifications and manage seamlessly from any device.

Prefer a visual task manager? ClickUp’s got you! This adaptable task management software offers 15+ Views for managing tasks on Kanban boards, sorting tasks in the List view, or visualizing timelines with colorful Gantt charts. 🌈

And, if you’re dealing with an overwhelming workload, identify what to prioritize and deprioritize using ClickUp Task Priorities and its color-coded tags. You can also lighten the workload for your employees with ClickUp Automatons , which lets you automate time-consuming tasks like checking emails or organizing documents.

Embrace stress-free productivity with ClickUp Brain and pre-made templates

Beyond tracking and prioritizing tasks, ClickUp also lends a hand with Project Management . For instance, you can employ ClickUp Brain , the platform’s AI assistant, to automate project summaries, task planning, and task standups and updates.

ClickUp Brain is a neural network connecting your tasks, documents, and discussions on the platform—it helps you extract and summarize information and action items through simple prompts and questions.

Take your productivity to new heights with numerous customizable ClickUp templates to help you standardize task assignments immediately! The ClickUp Task Management Template is a great starting point. With this template, you can organize your tasks into Lists like Action Items , Ideas , and Backlog for easier navigation and open separate views to track assignments by department or priority label. 🚩

ClickUp best features

• 1,000+ templates to kickstart skillful task management
• Supports time tracking and time blocking
• ClickUp Dashboards for real-time task tracking and productivity metrics
• ClickUp Goals to set measurable task KPIs
• Task Checklist feature for easy to-do list creation
• Multiple project views like List, Table, and Timeline
• Custom task statuses to complement your workflow
• A Bulk Action Toolbar to edit multiple tasks at once
• Automates recurring, error-prone tasks
• Built-in task prioritization levels  
• Universal Search and Tags to access tasks quickly
• Supports task generation directly from ClickUp Docs and Whiteboards
• Integrates with 1,000+ apps like Slack, Gmail, Zoom, Outlook, and HubSpot
• Dedicated mobile app for iOS and Android
• Compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux
• Built-in chat and file-sharing options for task collaboration
• Easy-to-use, no-code interface

ClickUp limitations

• It takes time to explore all its task management features
• A dedicated subtask reporting feature would be a great add-on

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever
• Unlimited: $7/month per user
• Business: $12/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• ClickUp AI: Add to any paid plan for $5 per member per month

*All listed prices refer to the yearly billing model

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (9,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (4,000+ reviews)

Asana is an online task management software that lets you document all assignments in one location. Like ClickUp, Asana makes creating tasks a breeze. Add task descriptions in the form of bulleted lists, embed files to add context, set due dates, and add assignees in a few clicks. You can also create subtasks, identify blockers, and quickly streamline approvals on task changes.

This quality task management software features a My Tasks list , which helps you prioritize work by auto-promoting tasks based on due dates.

What makes Asana stand out among its alternatives is the Workflow Builder feature , which allows you to create workflows without coding, helping you automate routine tasks and expedite projects. You can even track the same task across departments to avoid work duplication.⚡

Asana is a collaborative task management tool —it lets you communicate with your team directly within the app, encouraging cross-functional collaboration . For added transparency, add relevant collaborators to your team’s tasks to keep them updated on progress.

Asana best features

• Templates for task management
• Remote-friendly collaboration tools
• Zero-code workflow builder
• Search and filtering options for simpler navigation
• Integrates with apps like Slack and Dropbox
• Mobile app for Android and iOS

Asana limitations

• May be challenging to implement for large teams
• Storage and collaboration features could use improvement

Asana pricing

• Personal: Free forever
• Starter: $10.99/month per user
• Advanced: $24.99/month per user

Asana ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (9,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (12,000+ reviews)

While not as beginner-friendly as most alternatives due to its complex features, Jira is a popular task management software option among seasoned professionals in industries like IT, finance, marketing, and HR. It was first launched by Atlassian as an issue-tracking tool for software developers but has branched out to become a useful tool for project managers and task managers alike.

Jira is a handy tool for agile project management , allowing teams to break a complex project into manageable sprints . Its multiple views, like boards and timelines, help track sprint tasks and identify roadblocks to ensure continuous improvement .

Jira also supports team collaboration by allowing members to brainstorm and exchange task information across departments through shared workflows.

Jira, like ClickUp , lets you update task statuses in real time, while its automaton feature helps you run manual actions in the background. Plus, project managers can automate work using its numerous task management templates . 😀

Jira best features

• Workflow automation support
• Multiple task views for agile teams
• Templates for niches like human resources , marketing, and IT
• Integrates with Atlassian Work Management and other popular apps
• Task management apps for Android and iOS

Jira limitations

• The system can be slow at times
• The user interface and dashboard design could be improved

Jira pricing

• Free: Up to 10 users
• Standard: $8.15/month per user
• Premium: $16/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing

Jira ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (5,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (13,000+ reviews)

Check out these Jira alternatives !

Using Monday.com to manage tasks can make Mondays less dreadful! This simple task management software provides all key features, from multiple task views to task templates, that you’d find in most Monday alternatives .

Still, Monday.com stands out with its smooth interface . Its Work Management feature lets you create no-code workflows. Even project managers enjoy an intuitive layout that allows them to make informed decisions by accessing quick overviews of task progress on a dashboard. 📈

Monday.com allows you to organize workspaces into projects with individual tasks and subtasks, complete with color-coding options to help you track task priorities and statuses easily.

The software offers specific task management features for marketing and PMO teams . For example, marketing teams can benefit from key features like brand asset management , robust Gantt charts, and campaign tracking . Meanwhile, PMO teams rely on features for monitoring OKRs , identifying dependencies, and tracking time for future task planning.

Overall, it’s a well-rounded task management tool—quite similar to ClickUp and Plaky in terms of design and feature set.

Monday.com best features

• Includes 200+ automation options
• Color-coded task statuses and priority levels
• User-friendly 
• No-code workflows setup
• Offers a mobile app for iOS and Android
• Integrates with over 200 apps

Monday.com limitations

• The initial setup tends to be overwhelming
• Some users struggle with custom reminders and experience delays in notifications

Monday.com pricing

• Free: Up to two users
• Basic: $9/month per user
• Standard: $12/month per user
• Pro: $19/month per user

Monday.com ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (10,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)

If you’re a fan of Kanban boards, you’ll have a blast using Trello. This task management software is all about moving tasks like sticky notes on a drag-and-drop Kanban board for easier status tracking.

Individuals can use it to create personalized task lists, while team members can rely on advanced checklists to add context to tasks by adding due dates and assignees. 

This software supports task prioritization through labels like high, medium, or low priority—filter the labels to access a specific batch of tasks . It also has a no-code automation tool called Butler, which lets you create rules, buttons, and commands to automate select recurring tasks.

Trello lets you view your tasks on calendars, timelines, and neatly organized tables, which is often more than enough to manage workloads in a smaller team. However, if you’re running a larger team that may prefer more flexibility and a wider variety of project views, Trello alternatives with enterprise features may be a better option.

Trello best features

• Butler—a no-code automation tool
• Kanban-based task tracking software
• Includes checklists, calendars, and timelines
• Color coding helps prioritize tasks
• Android and iOS mobile apps

Trello limitations

• Gets costly as users increase in number
• May not support complex project management

Trello pricing

• Standard: $5/month per user
• Premium: $10/month per user
• Enterprise: $17.5/month per user

Trello ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (13,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (23,000+ reviews)

Hive is an all-encompassing project management software that provides any hybrid team with a task management platform to:

• Assign, track, and execute tasks together, regardless of location
• Monitor upcoming tasks across departments
• Collaborate async or live with Hive Notes and Text and Voice Chat

This software lets you observe your tasks from multiple angles . For example, use the Portfolio view to get a detailed overview of tasks across projects or the Label view to categorize subtasks. Focus better by activating the My Actions view to display your task assignments in a concentrated way. 

Rely on key features like task status to easily track progress, templates to customize project layouts, and notifications to never miss a beat.

Plus, Hive offers Workflows App —a no-code task automation tool to help you cut down on manual labor and design personalized automated workflows. 

Like ClickUp, Hive supports project collaboration by letting teammates communicate across projects by leaving comments on action cards or tagging team members.

Hive best features

• Collaborative task management tool
• Supports individual, group, or project discussions
• AI assistant ( HiveMind ) and templates to support standard tasks
• My Actions view tracks all the tasks assigned to you 
• Includes a no-code task automation tool
• Integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive

Hive limitations

• The mobile app has limited functionality
• UX may get compromised with many collaborators

Hive pricing

• Starter: $5/month per user
• Teams: $12/month per user

Hive ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (500+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (100+ reviews)

Check out these Hive alternatives !

Most alternatives to MeisterTask include Kanban boards as one of their key features. However, MeisterTask excels as Kanban-based task management software because of how user-friendly and intuitive it is. 😻

It provides customizable Kanban-style boards that let you organize and monitor task cards to mark if they’re In Progress , Done , or on the To Do list. These boards keep your work centralized and let you communicate effectively through task comments.

You can mention teammates in the comments, add them as project watchers, and assign them tasks directly from the board. Activate real-time notifications to keep everyone in the loop about the latest project updates.

Besides collaborative boards, the software offers personal pinboards called Agendas, where you can organize all the tasks assigned to you, as well as access additional details like due dates and important files faster.

MeisterTask best features

• Easy-to-use Kanban boards for organizing tasks
• Can serve as a personal task management software
• Task-related collaboration through comments
• Dashboards to track upcoming tasks, time-tracking data, and notifications
• Lets you automate recurring tasks
• iOS and Android mobile apps

MeisterTask limitations

• The software could benefit from adding a workflow calendar to its features
• Notifications may be delayed on mobile devices

MeisterTask pricing

• Basic: Free
• Pro: $6.50/month per user

MeisterTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (1,000+ reviews)

nTask serves as a central hub for tracking and scheduling tasks . Use it’s task scheduling software to assign project tasks or entire task lists to your teammates and set real-time notifications to ensure no action remains overlooked.

Its robust time-tracking capabilities can help you monitor time spent on tasks and estimate the amount of time you’ll need for future tasks and projects. 

nTask is a visual task management tool —it lets you plan and prioritize tasks, manage interconnected delivery timelines, and visualize projects with color-coded Gantt charts. Plan your projects easily by creating tasks and adding descriptions and assignees.

Schedule tasks by setting planned and actual due dates and creating task dependencies and milestones to ensure timely completion. Then, set priorities and track their progress using custom statuses.

nTask best features

• Offers multiple project views (board, grid, list, and calendar)
• Comprehensive task tracking
• Visual task management and task scheduling through Gantt charts
• Recurring tasks feature with daily, weekly, or monthly repeats
• Integrates with 1,000+ tools like Apple Calendar, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams
• Android and iOS support

nTask limitations

• Attaching documents and photos may be challenging
• User interface could be more intuitive

nTask pricing

• Premium: $3/month per user
• Business: $8/month per user

nTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)

ZenHub is a project management solution that primarily caters to software development teams. It provides a native GitHub integration via a browser extension for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. This helps reduce context switching by keeping project tasks connected with GitHub code. 

Plus, ZenHub offers automatic task updates as users complete issues in GitHub, streamlining task completion by eliminating manual status check-ins from your team’s to-do list. There are also automated hand-offs to update all connected workspaces.

This online task management and software development tool brings tasks together on intuitive, drag-and-drop Kanban boards , allowing you to view all current tasks and their status.

Use these boards to prioritize tasks, track projects, and attach pull requests to corresponding issues. Group related issues into Epics or connect various private and public GitHub repos to a single board. 👨‍🏫

Additionally, ZenHub offers sprint planning features, making it a handy tool for agile teams . It lets you set automated sprint cycles, auto-generate new sprints with prioritized and unfinished tasks, and receive periodical reports on progress.

ZenHub best features

• Various key features for agile teams
• Native GitHub integration
• Provides spring planning and tracking
• Boards for easy task management 
• Automate repetitive tasks and hand-offs
• Acts as a visual task management tool with roadmaps and timelines
• Integrates with Figma, Miro, and Loom

ZenHub limitations

• Steep learning curve
• The interface may be challenging to navigate

ZenHub pricing

• Free: 14-day free trial
• For Teams: $8.33/month per user (annual billing)
• For Enterprises: Contact sales for pricing

ZenHub ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (30+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (30+ reviews)

Zoho Projects is a project management software with features such as issue tracking, team monitoring , project timesheets, and resource utilization charts. It helps you manage projects in industries like marketing, construction, IT, and consulting.

It also offers a comprehensive toolset for task management that assists you in breaking projects down into milestones, task lists, and subtasks for simpler tracking.

This task management platform is all about details—each task can have attributes like assignees, work hours, priorities, and reminders. Use timesheets and timers to record time spent on each task.

Like many Zoho alternatives , this tool simplifies task organization by providing Kanban-style boards with drag-and-drop task cards and flexible statuses. As for planning and tracking, use Gantt charts to identify your team’s tasks, set dependencies, and monitor deadlines to ensure everything is done on time. ⌛

The software lets you schedule tasks on a calendar, which provides an overview of team members’ capacity. That way, you enjoy balanced task planning and avoid the risk of team burnout. 

Zoho Projects best features

• Quick-access Gantt charts
• Supports versatile task management use cases
• Highly customizable workflows
• Easy task scheduling on calendars
• Integrates with various Zoho, Google, and Microsoft apps 
• Task management apps (iOS 9.0+ and Android 4.1+)

Zoho Projects limitations

• Initial setup may be challenging
• Software customization can be time-consuming 

Zoho Projects pricing

• Free: Up to three users
• Premium: $4/month per user
• Enterprise: $9/month per user

Zoho Projects ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (300+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (400+ reviews)

ActiveCollab is all about increasing productivity and meeting deadlines. The tool lets you add due dates, assignees, and detailed task descriptions. Break down complex actions into subtasks, ensuring all assigned tasks get done as planned. You can also:

• Group tasks based on different criteria
• Duplicate repetitive tasks

This online task management software offers three project views to choose from, which is less than what ActiveCollab alternatives typically offer. Still, it includes frequently used views—the Kanban board, Gantt chart, and List view. 📝

ActiveCollab helps you reduce manual labor by automating recurring tasks. And, if you need to ensure actions are completed in a fixed order, just create dependencies between multiple tasks.

ActiveCollab stresses the importance of a personal task manager —it provides a My Work page where you can find and organize your task assignments by project or due date. 

This page also serves as your personal timesheet, offering an overview of all your time records. You can revisit your activity in terms of the comments posted, tasks created or closed, or due dates modified.

ActiveCollab best features

• Excellent personal task management software
• Automation for repetitive tasks
• Dependencies for order-specific actions
• Android and iOS smartphone apps
• Integrates with other task management tools like Asana and Trello

ActiveCollab limitations

• The file-sharing feature of this task management software could be simpler to use
• Adding more customization options could be beneficial 

ActiveCollab pricing

• Plus: $9.5/month 3 users/month
• Pro: $8/month per user/month
• Pro+Get Paid: $11.75/month per user

ActiveCollab ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (90+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (300+ reviews)

Wrike is well-known for its robust task and workflow management features. It allows you to prioritize work on personalized dashboards by pinning important tasks from your to-do list and automatically sorting them by priority and due date.

Like most of Wrike’s competitors , Wrike supports strong teamwork —it lets teams collaborate on real-time project plans, task assignments, and decision-making within the platform.

Wrike’s workflows adapt to your needs, so regardless of your project management methodology, you can visualize your tasks in views like Gantt Chart, Kanban, and Calendar.

Plus, the software includes built-in proofing tools for quick yet detailed task feedback, task automation to save time, and collaboration tools to increase work efficiency.

Additionally, Wrike allows project managers to build customizable reports on task and team performance. They can further optimize workflows by analyzing relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) on dashboards.

Wrike best features

• Comprehensive project dashboards with personalized reports
• Supports feedback-friendly team collaboration
• Multiple project views
• 400+ integrations
• Task automation

Wrike limitations

• Could use more custom display options
• Some users experience task syncing issues

Wrike pricing

• Team: $9.80/month per user
• Business: $24.80/month per user
• Enterprise and Pinnacle: Contact sales

Wrike ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (3,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (2,000+ reviews)

While many Todoist alternatives on this list offer additional project management features, Todoist is purely focused on task management. It assists you in creating detailed daily to-do lists to ensure optimal day-to-day organization.

The tool is simple to use—just create tasks and subtasks, determine priorities, add due dates, and set reminders to ensure nothing goes overlooked. 👀

Although it’s primarily a task management app, Todoist can help you manage projects as it includes goal-setting features , labels to categorize tasks, and task descriptions to keep information centralized.

You can use its Upcoming calendar view to see which tasks are due urgently and use a drag-and-drop function to reschedule assignments. If you need to focus on tasks that are currently due, simply go to the Today view .

While Todoist’s simple navigation and low price make it a handy tool for personal task management, it’s also a good to-do list app for teams on a tight budget . Its project management features aren’t too comprehensive, but you can still assign tasks and leverage comments for better teamwork and transparency. 

Todoist best features

• Efficient daily task management
• Multiple task views (including Kanban boards and lists)
• Basic team collaboration support
• Easy navigation
• Integrates with various productivity and time-tracking apps
• Has a to-do list app for Android and iOS

Todoist limitations

• Integrating the software with some apps may be challenging
• It would be beneficial if the app displayed tasks when you’re offline

Todoist pricing

• Beginner: Free
• Pro: $4/month per user
• Business: $6/month per user

Todoist ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (2,000+ reviews)

Besides being a task management tool, ProofHub is a task tracking software that lets you easily create task lists and individual tasks, assign them to team members, and closely follow due dates and priorities across task categories . Got complex tasks? Divide them into subtasks for simpler tracking.

Similar to ProofHub alternatives , the software is fully customizable —it lets you build personalized workflows and use custom fields to capture any task-related data you deem important. Custom fields enhance task tracking —because you can customize them to track virtually anything, be it deadlines or output.

Speaking of tracking, ProofHub has a feature for creating task dependencies to help you ensure tasks are completed in a predetermined order. If you want to offer more clarity to assignees, leave comments on tasks or use mentions to guide them.

Additionally, ProofHub offers various reporting options to help you gain insight into your project’s progress. You can enhance resource allocation by analyzing resource utilization reports or tracking project-specific progress with task completion reports.

ProofHub best features

• Multi-faceted task tracking software
• Customizable workflows
• Supports task-related discussions through comments and mentions
• Reports to gauge task progress
• Various project views like Kanbans and tables
• Mobile-friendly

ProofHub limitations

• Notifications can get difficult to manage
• Some users find its customization features complex

ProofHub pricing

• Essential: $45/month 
• Ultimate Control: $150/month (or $89/month for a limited time offer)

ProofHub ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5 (80+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (90+ reviews)

SmartTask includes all key features you’d typically find in a task management tool—it lets you create subtasks, set deadlines, add dependencies, and manage tasks in views like calendar, list, and board.

However, this software especially stands out with its tools for managing multiple projects simultaneously in a cross-functional setup. Its Project Portfolios feature allows you to create multiple boards to track separate goals, aligning your marketing, sales, and design teams. To play it safer, you can even share task lists across teams to prevent orphaned actions. 

SmartTask supports team collaboration by letting you comment on tasks and generate real-time notifications for updates. You can also invite clients, vendors, and external stakeholders to collaborate on any task or project by sending them an invitation.

Plus, it provides reports on both project tasks and sales that you can easily find through its advanced search bar. 🔎

SmartTask best features

• Internal and external team communication
• Set recurring tasks (daily, weekly, or monthly)
• Task and sales reports
• Supports managing tasks across projects
• Time tracking for individual tasks
• Task management tools for iOS and Android

SmartTask limitations

• The UI and UX could use some improvement
• Adding more integrations would be useful

SmartTask pricing

• Premium: $7.99/month per user
• Business: $10.99/month per user

SmartTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (60+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (30+ reviews)

HubSpot Task Management is far from a traditional task manager—it’s a suite designed to help marketers streamline Customer Relationship Management (CRM) processes. Effective CRM depends on properly storing, tracking, and managing lead- and customer-based activities. HubSpot helps you streamline these scattered tasks to boost revenue.

The software reduces the need to switch between multiple tabs when talking to prospects by providing dashboards that centralize all your work. Use them to track your to-do list items, view prospect details, and stay on top of meetings. 

Need to create new tasks? Do that directly from your workflows, email inbox, or to-do list. If you need insights from past task performances, like deals made and activities completed, leverage HubSpot’s reporting tools.

This platform simplifies communication with email templates (for sending messages in bulk) and real-time team chat. 

While sales and marketing teams may enjoy HubSpot’s task management style, some of HubSpot’s alternatives could be a better choice for companies in IT or finance.

HubSpot best features

• A wide array of CRM functionalities
• Live team chats
• Dashboards to centralize prospect-related work
• Integrates with apps like WordPress, Gmail, and Zapier
• iOS and Android mobile app for HubSpot CRM

HubSpot limitations

• Limited option to prioritize tasks
• Workflow automation is limited on the free plan

HubSpot pricing

For individuals and small teams:

• Starter: $15/month
• Professional: $800/month

HubSpot (CRM) ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (11,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (4,000+ reviews)

Paymo is a simple task management software designed for professionals who want to manage client work and resources within one platform . It lets you automatically set up ghost bookings based on the task details you’ve entered in the past and receive a visual overview of all bookings for the entire team on a single screen. 🖥️

Paymo also simplifies managing resources by allowing multiple managers to work on schedule to avoid overbooking or underbooking. You can:

• Book time for time-sensitive tasks by the hour
• Accommodate unscheduled tasks with a simple drag-and-drop function
• Visualize your team’s availability on timelines
• Send booking notifications only to relevant team members

The platform lets employees view their tasks in a single view, while task managers monitor both their personal tasks and team’s work in separate views. Like with most Paymo alternatives , you get project views like Gantt charts, Tables, and Calendars to visualize tasks.

It also encourages team collaboration, offering a detailed Task View to chat in real-time about the latest task updates. Finally, Paymo provides task priority levels like critical, high, normal, or low across teams.

Paymo best features

• Timelines to assess employee availability
• Allows booking time for client tasks by the hour
• Real-time chat
• Project views like Gantt chart and Kanban board
• Integrates with apps like Slack, Google Calendar, and JotForm
• Mobile app support for iOS and Android

Paymo limitations

• The mobile app may be tricky to navigate
• Takes time to train employees to use the platform

Paymo pricing

• Starter: $5.9/month per user
• Small Office: $10.9/month per user
• Business: $16.9/month per user

Paymo ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (400+ reviews)

While most TimeCamp alternatives on this list include typical task and project management features, TimeCamp shifts its focus to time tracking instead.

With its robust time-tracking capabilities , you can track your team’s working hours, standardize times for specific jobs, plan task assignments, and monitor each team member’s productivity.

TimeCamp also provides features for measuring the profitability of your projects and tracking billable hours, streamlining invoicing and resource management. Basically, the tasks you had to do manually, like creating invoices and approving timesheets, can be automated with TimeCamp.

Although this software highlights time tracking, it’s still a task management tool. Its TimeCamp Planner product helps you organize tasks and monitor their progress on Kanban-style boards. 

If you’re dealing with repeatable tasks, automate them by specifying information like due dates, assignees, and progress statuses. Plus, you can switch from team task overview to your own using the My Tasks feature , which displays your assigned tasks on a list, calendar, or timeline view.

Note that TimeCamp’s time tracking and task management features are available on separate pricing plans .

TimeCamp best features

• Comprehensive time-tracking tools
• Kanban board for easy task tracking
• Personal task lists
• Can automate repeatable tasks
• Includes apps for Android and iOS
• TimeCamp (not the TimeCamp Planner) integrates with tools like ClickUp, Google Calendar, and Slack

TimeCamp limitations

• The user interface and server load time could be better
• The tool may be buggy at times

TimeCamp pricing (for TimeCamp Planner)

• Pro: $2.99/month per user

TimeCamp ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (500+ reviews)

Any.do specializes in providing easy-to-use to-do lists to help you achieve personal or professional goals efficiently. You can organize your to-dos in separate lists and projects, all color-coded to set clear priorities and determine task categories. Enhance your task lists with:

• Subtasks and attachments for added task awareness
• Deadlines and reminders

Sharing responsibilities is also simple—just share a task list with your teammates or family to collaborate on task completion . For example, you can assign different items on a grocery list to family members and track the list to ensure they complete the task successfully. If there’s an urgent matter you wish to discuss, use the chat function to communicate in real time.  

For companies looking for a task management tool with project management capabilities, Any.do is a solid choice as it also offers features like customizable workflows, pre-made templates, and powerful integrations with other work tools.

If you want more comprehensive workflow features, though, explore some more advanced Any.do alternatives .

Any.do best features

• Provides simple to-do lists
• Great as a daily task manager
• Lets you share lists with teams, family, and friends
• Reminders for timely task completion
• Has apps for iOS and Android
• Integrates with other task management tools like ClickUp and Asana

Any.do limitations

• Some users desire more integrations (like with Microsoft Calendar)
• Limited advanced features for this price range

Any.do pricing

• Premium: $5/month per user
• Family: $8/month per four users
• Teams: $5/month per user

*All listed prices refer to approx values billed annually

Any.do ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (100+ reviews)

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like task management tool . It’s great for those who are comfortable tracking tasks in Excel but are open to switching to a tool with less complicated calculation work.

Like ClickUp, Smartsheet offers comprehensive project and task management tools for handling different workflows. For example, it lets you schedule tasks, create subtasks, allocate resources, and track assignments efficiently from one platform. ✅

Here, tasks are represented on spreadsheets for individual projects. Like most Smartsheet alternatives , you can add basic task information, like due dates and assignees, in clear fields or columns.

However, these aren’t traditional spreadsheets—they also provide the advanced features of a modern task management tool. For instance, you can use checkboxes, dropdown lists, and comments to interact with tasks on Smartsheet.

This is a great task management software for teams working on extensive projects as it includes templates for agile project management, OKR tracking, budgeting, and resource management.

It also supports task automation, real time collaboration , and advanced analytics. Plus, it integrates with services you may already use, like Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams.

Smartsheet best features

• Spreadsheet-based project management tool
• Advanced functionalities for monitoring complex projects
• Supports real-time team communication
• Templates for agile project management
• Integrates with numerous communication, data visualization, and project delivery apps
• Available as an iOS or Android mobile app

Smartsheet limitations

• There may be a steep learning curve for users figuring out advanced features
• It could benefit from adding more template options

Smartsheet pricing

• Pro: $7/month per user
• Business: $25/month per user

Smartsheet ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (14,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (3,000+ reviews)

Leveraging the Best Task Management Software: Which Tool to Pick

Since all the products on our list are rated well by users, it’s natural to be overwhelmed by the choices. So, what do you really prioritize in a task management platform?

The answer is straightforward— great task management software provides features that help you plan, organize, track, and assign tasks, but you shouldn’t have to pay a fortune for these functions. Don’t settle for a tool that doesn’t include the bare minimum, i.e., reminders, automations, task views, and collaboration features.

Lastly, task management tools are supposed to make your life easier, not vice versa, so ensure your chosen tool is easy to implement and fun to work with! 🥳

If you can’t make a choice, try ClickUp ! It’s got all the features you’ll need to streamline task management with minimal effort. Whether you want to set goals, track and assign tasks, manage time, reduce manual labor, or communicate with your team, the possibilities are endless.

Sign up to ClickUp today and enjoy the best toolkit a free task management software has to offer! 💖 

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Project Management Dashboards: Your Key to Success

• May 25, 2023

Learn from a FuseBase expert how to strengthen your project management!

A project management dashboard is like the control center of a spaceship. They give you a bird’s eye view of the whole operation, providing you with all the vital signs and indicators that you need to navigate through the project cosmos. “Dashboards? Really? Aren’t they just boring charts and grids?” Not at all! They’re your secret weapon, your compass in the project management wilderness (a.k.a. PM), and your path to becoming the project manager superstar you always knew you could be.

In this awesome article, we’re going to demystify these bad boys, break down their importance, and show you just how they can revolutionize the way you manage projects. So grab a cuppa , get comfy , and let’s jump right in!

What is a Project Management Dashboard?

• Essentials for Your Project Management Dashboard

Benefits of Using a Project Management Dashboard

Types of project management dashboards, top 5 project management dashboard software.

• 1. FuseBase
• 4. BaseCamp

Examples of Project Management Dashboards

• Creating an Project Management Dashboard
• Create Project Management Dashboard with FuseBase

A project management dashboard, in its simplest form, is a data-driven, interactive tool used that provides a visual representation of a project’s key performance indicators (KPIs). It’s like a command center or central location for project managers, where you can monitor, track, and analyze the project’s progress in real time. 

But, it doesn’t just stop at data representation. A well-designed project management dashboard should be intuitive and user-friendly, showing your project’s status at a glance and translating raw data into a visually pleasing and easily digestible format, allowing you to spot patterns, track progress, and identify potential issues before they turn into major roadblocks.

Why are Project Management Dashboards Important

Now that we’ve covered what a project management dashboard is, you might be wondering, “why should I care?” Well, let us tell you, these dashboards are not just fancy visual reporting tools; they are incredibly important in managing projects effectively and efficiently. So, let’s dive into why a project management dashboard is such game-changer:

• Real-time overview of your project: A project management dashboard provides an instant snapshot of your project’s status, progress, completed tasks, pending work, and potential bottlenecks.
• Better decision-making : The visual data presentation on a project management dashboard facilitates quick trend identification and data-driven decision-making.
• Improved communication and collaboration: A shareable project management dashboard fosters transparency and alignment, ensuring everyone understands their roles and collaborates effectively.
• Time-saving: With automatic data gathering, updating, and display, dashboards save significant time and reduce the risk of human error.
• Keep track of KPIs: A project dashboard software allows for easy monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs), measuring project performance against set goals.
• Risk management: Dashboards enable proactive identification and mitigation of potential risks, keeping your project on track.

In conclusion, a project management dashboard is more than just a nice-to-have tool; it’s an essential part of successful projects. It helps you navigate through challenges and keep your team on the same page. 

What to Include In Your Project Management Dashboard

Alright, now that we know why a project management dashboard is vital, let’s discuss what exactly you should include in your project dashboard to make it truly effective. Here are seven key elements you need to consider:

• Project timeline: This is the timetable of your strategy, showing start dates, end dates, and progress over time, helping you track if your team is running on schedule or if you need to put the pedal to the metal.
• KPIs and milestones: KPIs help you gauge the health of your project, while milestones show you how far you’ve come and how far you need to go.
• Task progress and status: This shows you how many tasks are completed, how many are in progress, and how many are still waiting in the wings, helping you prioritize and focus on the most crucial tasks.
• Team member responsibilities: Always know who’s responsible for what, ensure tasks are evenly distributed, and that everyone knows their roles, reducing the chances of tasks falling through the cracks.
• Access to communication tools: Provide quick access to communication and collaboration tools in your project dashboard tool and foster team synergy to increase productivity.
• Budget and cost tracking: Track your budget, actual costs, and expenditure in real time. This helps you stay financially afloat, in control of costs, and ensure you don’t break the bank.
• Documentation: This can be your project’s knowledge base or corporate wiki , providing quick access to all the necessary resources at their fingertips..

These elements are the backbone of a robust project management dashboard, providing you with a comprehensive overview of your whole operation, enhancing project team collaboration, and ensuring your team runs like a well-oiled machine.

• 🔥 Top Tips for Effectively Managing Multiple Projects at Once
• 💻 6 Best Project Management Software With Client Portals

By now, we have a clear understanding of what a project management dashboard is and what it should include. But why should you invest your time and energy in creating and maintaining a dashboard? Well, here are the top five benefits that might just convince you to jump on the dashboard bandwagon:

• Improved Visibility: A project dashboard offers a real-time, high-level view of your team tasks, like an X-ray vision into tasks and team performance.
• Better Decision Making: Dashboards transform raw data into visual insights, enabling quick, data-driven decision-making.
• Increased Efficiency: A project dashboard can automate manual project tracking and automatically update reports, freeing up time for more strategic tasks.
• Enhanced Communication and Collaboration : A shared project dashboard increases transparency, clarity of roles, and foster a collaborative work environment.
• Proactive Risk Management: Dashboards help identify potential risks early, ensuring projects stay on track and within scope.

In a nutshell, a project management dashboard is a powerful tool that can dramatically enhance your PM capabilities. So, if you’re not already using a project dashboard, now might be the perfect time to start. 

Not every project dashboard template is created equal. Depending on your needs and the specific characteristics of your project, you might need a general project status dashboard or something different. Here are five of the most relevant types of project dashboards:

Project Status Dashboards

A project status dashboard is like your project’s “health checkup”. It provides an overview of the overall project, tracking key parameters like task completion, time spent, budget, and more. A project status dashboard is ideal for providing a quick snapshot of where the project stands at any given moment and it’s especially useful for stakeholder meetings and team check-ins.

Executive Dashboards

Think of these as your “bird’s eye view” dashboards. While they are similar to project status dashboards, they are better suited to high-level stakeholders who need to understand the broader picture rather than the nitty-gritty details. They typically track high-level KPIs, overall project health, and strategic milestones. This type of project dashboard are perfect for keeping executives informed without overwhelming them with too much detail.

Team Dashboards

These are your “on the ground” dashboards. Unlike a project status dashboard, a team dashboard focuses specifically on the tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities of individual team members. They are an excellent tool for boosting the entire team productivity, as they allow everyone to see who is responsible for what, what tasks are pending, and what deadlines are approaching.

Risk Management Dashboards

These are your project’s “security guard” dashboards. They focus on identifying, tracking, and managing potential risks. By providing a clear overview of all current and potential risks, these dashboards allow you to proactively address issues before they become major problems .

Portfolio Dashboards

These are your “big picture” dashboards. They provide an overview of multiple projects at once, showing how each of them is performing and how they relate to each other. These dashboards are ideal for project managers overseeing multiple projects, allowing them to balance human resources, timelines, and priorities across the entire portfolio.

Each type of project dashboard serves a unique purpose and provides different actionable insights. So, when choosing a dashboard, consider your audience, the nature of your project, and what information you want to track and communicate.

Alright, now comes the fun part: picking out the project management software that’s going to help you create your stellar project dashboard. Here are, in our professional opinion, the top five project management dashboard software choices for 2023, each bringing its unique flavor to the table:

FuseBase (formerly Nimbus)

Stepping into the spotlight is FuseBase (formerly Nimbus), your project manager powerhouse. FuseBase turns your documents into dynamic dashboards, providing a fully customizable command center view of your project. Its ability to embed key data from various third-party tools means you have a rich, visual representation of every aspect at your fingertips. With comprehensive task lists, you can ensure balanced workloads, while flexible tables with custom attributes give you granular control over your projects and roadmaps. Plus, FuseBase excels at team collaboration, offering built-in chat and video features for seamless communication. In short, FuseBase is like a Swiss army knife, equipped with everything you need to create any type of dynamic dashboard.

Embrace all powers for project management today!

Next up, we have Monday. If your project planning process feels more like a Friday-afternoon slump, Monday is here to bring back the energy. Known for its vibrant, visually engaging tables and Gantt charts, this project management software dashboard offers highly customizable project dashboards that can be tailored to your specific needs. It’s an all-in-one project management dashboard tool, allowing you to track tasks, manage resource allocation, and collaborate with your team, all within the same platform. With its built-in automation capabilities, Monday can save you time on repetitive project tasks, letting you focus on steering your project to success.

ClickUp is a jack of all trades and one of the best Monday alternatives . It’s packed with key features, from customizable project views and task management to time tracking and goal setting. ClickUp’s project dashboards are designed to give you a comprehensive overview of your projects, with the flexibility to drill down into the details when needed. Plus, with its robust integrations and automation capabilities, ClickUp is a powerhouse dashboard software that can streamline your entire project management process. However, its steep learning curve might have you looking for a ClickUp alternative .

If you’re climbing the mountain of project management, BaseCamp is the sturdy, reliable gear you need. This project management dashboard software is designed to be user-friendly, making it easy even for beginners to set up and manage their project dashboards. It focuses on improving team collaboration and communication, with features like message boards, to-do lists, and shared documents. With BaseCamp, you can keep all your project info in one place, making it easy for everyone on your team to stay aligned and informed.

Last but certainly not least, we have Asana. Asana is like the zen master of PM, helping you find calm amidst the chaos of managing projects. With its intuitive interface and powerful features, Asana allows you to create custom dashboards to track exactly what matters to you. From task lists and timelines to team’s workload management and collaboration, Asana has got you covered. Plus, it offers a wide range of integrations, allowing you to connect with your favorite tools and create a seamless project management workflow.

Each of these tools has its unique strengths, so the best one for you will depend on your specific needs, budget, and the nature of your specific projects. So, take your pick and start creating your project management dashboard today! 

Now, let’s turn our attention to some real-world examples of project management dashboards and templates. It’s like a backstage pass to how different teams and industries use dashboards to streamline their work. Let’s get take a look now!

Project Task Tracker

The Project Task Tracker dashboard template is your ultimate to-do list on steroids. This project dashboard template offers a clear view of every task in your project, who’s responsible for it, and when it’s due. It’s like having a PM personal assistant, keeping you and your team organized and on track. Use color-coding to indicate task status (completed, in progress, or pending), and watch your completion percentage progress in real time. So much better than an Excel spreadsheet.

Project Life Cycle Dashboard

The Project Life Cycle Dashboard is your project’s storybook. It charts the journey of your project from start to finish, giving you a high-level overview of each phase. Think of this project dashboard template as your project’s biography, with chapters for initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure. It’s a great tool for keeping stakeholders informed about the project progress and what’s coming up next.

Marketing Plan Dashboard

The Marketing Plan Dashboard is your marketing strategy’s control panel. It tracks your marketing goals, budget, and results all in one place. This dashboard template is like your marketing GPS, helping you navigate your marketing efforts and steer them towards your goals. It’s the perfect project dashboard template for marketing managers who need to keep an eye on multiple campaigns and ensure they’re delivering the expected results.

Marketing Campaign Tracking Dashboard

The Marketing Campaign Tracking Dashboard is your marketing campaign’s pulse check. It monitors the performance of individual marketing campaigns, tracking key metrics like engagement, conversion rates, and ROI. This dashboard is a must-have for any marketer looking to optimize their campaigns and maximize results.

IT Requests Dashboard

Finally, the IT Requests Dashboard is your IT team’s traffic controller. It manages incoming IT requests, tracks their current status, and monitors resolution times. Think of this project dashboard template as your IT department’s dispatcher, ensuring requests are handled efficiently and users are kept in the loop. It’s an essential tool for an IT project manager aiming to improve service delivery and user satisfaction.

These are just a few examples of different project dashboard templates you can create. Remember, the best project dashboard is the one that fits your needs and helps you manage your projects more effectively. So, don’t be afraid to customize and experiment with your dashboard template until you find the perfect fit.

Creating an Effective Project Management Dashboard

Creating a project management dashboard might seem like a daunting task, but trust us, it’s not rocket science. Think of it as baking a cake. You need the right ingredients, the correct recipe, and a dash of creativity. So, put on your chef’s hat, and let’s start baking!

1. Determine what you want to track

The first step in creating your project dashboard is deciding what you want to track. This is like choosing the flavor of your cake. The key here is to understand your project’s needs and objectives, and then select the key metrics related to the most valuable actionable insights.

2. Add your data sources

Next, you need to add your real-time data sources to your project dashboard. These are the ingredients for your cake. They might include task management tools, spreadsheets, or other project management software your team uses. Adding a data source to your project dashboard will allow you to pull in the relevant real-time data and keep everything updated in real-time.

3. Organize the information logically

With all your ingredients at hand, it’s time to mix them together. Organizing your information logically will help you and your individual departments quickly find the essential data you need. Group related data together and keep your most important specific metrics at the top or center of your dashboard for easy access. This step is like following your cake recipe to ensure everything comes together nicely.

4. Make it visual

Now, here’s where you can get a little creative. Making your dashboard visual is to business intelligence what decorating your cake is to baking. Use a Kanban board or Gantt chart for your project progress; make use of graphs, and color-coding to make your important data easy to understand at a glance. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a well-designed graph can convey project information more effectively than a table full of numbers.

5. Make it actionable

Making your project dashboard actionable is like adding the final touches to your cake. Every piece of data on your dashboard should serve a purpose and help inform decisions. Include buttons or links for every team member to update specific task statuses, add comments, or complete other actions right from the dashboard.

6. Invite your team members and clients

Once your project management dashboard is ready, it’s time to share it with your team and clients. This is like serving your cake at a party. Make sure everyone knows how to use the dashboard and encourage them to check it regularly for project updates.

7. Extract conclusions

The final step is to extract conclusions from your project management dashboard. This is like tasting your cake to see if it turned out right. Regularly review the important task data on your dashboard to identify trends, spot potential issues, and make informed decisions. 

Creating an effective PM dashboard requires careful planning, the right ingredients, and some creativity, but the end result, that is, a clear, actionable view of your project, is 100% worth the effort. 

Build a Project Management Dashboard With FuseBase

Are you ready to whip up a project dashboard that’s both powerful and easy to digest? Say hello to FuseBase (formerly Nimbus), your very own project maestro. FuseBase’s versatility is the secret sauce that transforms your documents into a visual symphony of project data. With FuseBase, you can embed widgets from a multitude of third-party tools, creating a unified, single source of truth for your team. 

Unleash your project’s potential and register for a free trial of FuseBase Business Plan today, no credit card required. Because in the world of project management dashboard, the sky’s the limit, and with FuseBase, you’re already halfway there. Sign up now and let the magic begin!

Successfully manage your projects with FuseBase!

Check out  the FuseBase Facebook page  to get the latest news and updates!

Parties other than FuseBase may provide products, services, recommendations, or views on FuseBase site (“Third Party Materials”). FuseBase is not responsible for examining or evaluating such Third Party Materials, and does not provide any warranties relating to the Third Party Materials. Links to such Third Party Materials are for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement of such Third Party Materials.

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• Decoding the Performance Dashboard

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• Waymaker release 22.4.9, how to do task automation, create taskboard templates, and view taskboard dashboards

by Stuart Leo | Dec 18, 2022

Task automation

Taskboard templates, perpetual templates, taskboard dashboards.

• You may also like...

Get started

Waymaker Taskboards are now even more intelligent & insightful than ever before.

Hitting goals and delivering outcomes is easier than ever with task automation, Taskboard templates, and Taskboard Dashboards.

Task automation enables task users to set a rule on a task to change status based on conditions met.

Taskboard templates allow you to create and save a taskboard of tasks, including task automations, content, and assignment to then apply those tasks into any other taskboard.

Taskboard dashboards allow members to quickly see relevant insights on task execution within that taskboard.

Who doesn’t love the feeling of getting a task list done.

With the introduction of task automation by status, time, and activity, you can now set relationships between tasks to trigger task actions.

Using time-based task automation enables a task to start (move to in-progress) after the completion of a specific number of days.

For example, 30 days after a new team member starts schedule a check-in to make sure the onboarding program is going as planned as you execute your employee experience strategy.

Using status-based task automation enables a task to start when a related task completes.

For example, you are rolling out a new marketing campaign and on concept approval from your line manager you mark this task as complete and the next task in your standard operating process for a marketing campaign moves to in-progress and is assigned to your digital advertising manager.

Using activity-based task automation enables a task to start when a related task’s owner completes all checklist items.

Waymaker tasks include checklists. These are lists on the tasks that are reminders to complete when doing the task. A checklist item might be a step with instructions or even a link to a file to update, or link to another webpage such as a knowledgebase article.

For example, a finance manager is completing an end of month accounting workflow which includes a set of checklist steps to reconcile, journal, and close off accounts. These action items are checklists on the task and when the final checklist item is market complete, the task is automatically marked complete.

If, in the above scenario, there was a status-based task automation on the task that was just completed, then it would action on task completion, creating and assigning the next task to whomever is set as responsible.

As you can see, if you start to apply and connect task automations, the opportunities are endless to execute tasks faster and easier.

Now that you can build intelligent task automation to execute more outcomes, more easily, it makes sense that you’ll want to save your task plan as a template to use again and again by yourself or by others.

That’s why we’ve built Taskboard templates.

Read more on our knowledgebase here: https://waymaker.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/13475748051353-Task-automation

Taskboard templates enable you to save a taskboard as a template and allow yourself or others to apply that template with all its content, checklists, assignments, and automations in to another taskboard.

When saving the existing taskboard to become a template taskboard you will be prompted to name the new taskboard and choose who the members of the template will be.

In fact, you can even customize the background color or image. Choose from our range of inspirational images, or upload your own to give this Taskboard it’s own personality.

Membership to a Taskboard template means that user can see the template in their template library. If you’re the Taskboard owner, you can choose to add members by user, or by team.

There are several useful applications of this.

Project templates

Create a best practice project template and save it as a template for others in your team or the entire company to access and use. The tasks might include detailed descriptions, checklists, links, automations, and assignments to people.

Standard operating processes

Create standard operating processes as task templates and allow users to access the template and deploy to any of their Taskboards.

For example, an annual leave application process. Create the steps to plan, apply, and confirm annual leave. A user can add the template of tasks to their personal task board and action accordingly.

Product launch

Another example could be a product launch. Hit every deadline and set up the product launch goal with your best practice product launch sequence of tasks, task automations, assignments, and pre-written content.

Task templates enable you to make best practice actionable with ease.

Taskboard templates are perpetual. What this means is that any number of taskboard templates can be applied in to a single taskboard any number of times.

Too often (in other software tools) a template is a one-time use. Choose your template and then create your task list, workspace, or board. However, once you’ve done this once, any new task creation must be manual.

Not in Waymaker. Perpetual templates mean you can apply or reapply any template into the same Taskboard as many times as you like!  

How does this help?

Let’s imagine you lead the marketing team. You run a weekly marketing team WIP in Waymaker Meetings to ensure that your team is on track to hit their goals every quarter.

In the Waymaker Meeting type you’ve created you have linked in your marketing team’s Taskboard for collaborative team execution.

At the start of each quarter there is a set of tasks to plan, brief, execute, optimize, and deliver campaigns.

Now, when the next quarter comes around and the next campaign is due, any member can click the template library icon, select the marketing campaign template, and a whole new set of the pre-organized tasks are deployed into the same Taskboard.

Now, with Waymaker Taskboard templates you can deploy best practice tasks, anytime.

In addition, let’s image the marketing team are executing a website rebuild. The team leader clicks on the template library icon, chooses the website build template, and deploys all the tasks (with their content and automations) into the marketing team’s Taskboard.

That’s the power of a perpetual templates. Any template, into any Taskboard, any number of times.

It is likely you’ll want to update templates over time as you continuously improve your execution.

If you need to update a template, simply go to the template library on your Tasks homepage, open the templated Taskboard and make the edits. They are automatically saved and ready for use in the next deployment. In addition, any updates are tracked as system notifications on the Taskboard chat channel ensuring any updates have an audit trail for security.  

Continuous improvement on perpetual templates! That’s performance intelligence!

Of course, now that you and your team are doing even better work, it’s time to share that with your colleagues.

Read more on our knowledgebase here: https://waymaker.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/13487718641817-Task-taskboard-templates

If you or your team are doing important work, it’s important you can see intelligent insights to improve the work.

Our new Taskboard dashboards are accessible as a native, pre-built dashboard on the Taskboard menu.

The native Taskboard dashboard is embedded on the Taskboard menu within the Taskboard you are working within.

If you have access to the Taskboard, you can see the Dashboard.

Click the Dashboard icon and you will instantly see the native dashboard. It looks like this.

Read more on our knowledgebase here: https://waymaker.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/13492424716441-Taskboard-dashboards

In addition to our Taskboard dashboards, users still have access to the Taskboard Gantt Chart feature which will instantly display a timeline of tasks as scheduled by start and end date within the taskboard.

The Gantt Chart is ideal for tacking projects and collaboration.

At Waymaker we exist to help leaders and teams build a better business by connecting business critical data with the person who can effect change.

With task automations, task templates, and task dashboards leaders and their teams are equipped and empowered to achieve more, while doing less.

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Web Dashboard UI - Task & Project Management

Improve your design skills with this free Web Dashboard template for task management.

Learn how it is designed on Skillshare (get 30-days free):

https://skl.sh/3dCZPe0

Or get the 4-parts video course for $10:

tetianag.gumroad.com/l/dashboardinfigma

Watch other Figma tutorials on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/TetianaG/

If you want to learn how to design this dashboard step-by-step watch my mini-course and get personal feedback on your design.

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7 steps to a beautiful and useful agile dashboard

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Greetings agile fans! A question I often get is how to configure Jira’s dashboards to show content that’s relevant for agile teams. It’s really just a matter of choosing the right elements. We’ll focus on a dashboard for a scrum team here, but many of these tips apply to kanban teams as well.

Pro tip : A dashboard should always incite emotion or action. If it’s not clear to your audience why the data is relevant, take feedback and change the dashboard. It may take an iteration or two to properly tune your dashboard to your team and stakeholders.

1: The Sprint Health gadget

The Sprint Health gadget   summarizes the most important metrics in a sprint. I like to have this one in the upper-left so everyone can see who’s working on the sprint and get a quick sense for any trouble in the air.

• Select the agile board you want to pull data from for the Board field
• Enable all three options underneath so assignees, sprint name, and board name are always visible
• Use the Next Sprint Due (auto) option for Sprint  so you don’t have to update the gadget’s settings every sprint
• Hit the  Save  button, and bask in the glory of being super-informed

2: The Sprint Burndown gadget

The Sprint Burndown gadget shows your team’s track record for the current sprint. The beginning of the sprint is on the left and the end of the sprint is on the right. In general, we want to see the Remaining Values line stay under the Guideline, shown in grey.

For this chart to be accurate, estimation in the beginning of the sprint is critical. The chart uses the estimates to draw that guideline. What are the flat spots in the guideline? Jira has the ability to specify non-working days in your sprints.

• Add the Agile Sprint Burndown gadget to your dashboard
• Select your agile board of choice for the Board field
• Use the  Next Sprint Due (auto)  option again

Pro tip: Check out our guide to project management . Even non-project managers can deliver the goods without losing their minds.

3: High-priority issues

I like to have a list of high-priority issues for my team in the upper right-hand corner. I can use a JQL statement to find any issue that has the Flagged field selected, as well as any issue that is considered a blocker. Why Flagged? Flagging an issue means that there’s an impediment for a team member to move forward. If an issue is marked priority = blocker, then that issue is globally important to the health of the project. Both are of concern to the team, but for different reasons. So your JQL statement will look something like:

• Add the Filter Results gadget to your dashboard
• Save the JQL above as a filter and enter its name in the  Saved Filter  field
• Adjust Number of Results as you see fit (hopefully your team doesn’t have more than 10 of these issues at a time!)
• Add Status under Columns to Display for easy reference

4: The Two-Dimensional Filter Statistics gadget

While a mouthful, the Two-Dimensional Filter Statistics  gadget packs a real punch! You can configure it to slice a set of data so that it’s easy to find key areas of concern. Using this gadget, I want to know two things: how much does each team member have on their plate, and what are the relative priorities of work distributed throughout the team?

Let’s consider all of the open work in setting up our base filter. We can use the following JQL statement to show the work in the current sprint as well as future scheduled work:

Add the Two-Dimensional Filter Statistics gadget to your dashboard twice. We’ll configure the first one to show how much work each team member has on their plate:

• Save the JQL above as a filter and enter its name in the Saved Filter  field
• Select Status for the X-axis field, and Assignee for the Y-axis field
• Set  Number of Results , to equal the number of members of your team
• Leave the rest of the fields set to their default values (or adjust as you see fit) and click the Save button

For the second gadget, follow the same steps as above, but select Priority for the X-axis field this time. Voila ! In this example, we can see that one team member, Ryan, has 2 critical issues on his plate, while Max has no critical or blocker issues. Perhaps some issue shuffling and reassignment is in order.

5: Continuous integration!

The most successful agile teams live and die by their continuous integration. I cannot overemphasize this! Consistent, effective investment in automated testing strategies by the entire team enable agility like no other effort. Using  Atlassian Bamboo , teams can stay on top of build breakages, and ensure that automated tests are running in top condition. When the build breaks, everyone suffers. And when the build succeeds, everyone wins.

Ask your Jira admin to configure the Bamboo plugin for Jira to make the Bamboo Plans gadget available. A few other Bamboo and build-related gadgets come with it, too!

6: The Assigned to Me gadget

Some teams like to assign out work at the sprint planning meeting, and often times someone creating an issue will assign it to a specific team member right off the bat. You can use the A ssigned to Me  gadget so that each team member gets a gadget listing their work. Setting this gadget up is as easy as it gets. Just add it to your dashboard, leave all the default settings in place, and save it. Boom.

7: Level up

Teams don’t live alone. You can extend your dashboard to include data from multiple teams. Need to track multiple scrum teams together? Use several instances of the S print Health  gadget alongside the Agile Sprint Burndown gadget to get a quick overview of how all teams are progressing towards a common goal.

Have more questions about creating dashboards? Ask them on the Atlassian community !

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Task management in Microsoft 365

Easily manage tasks across Microsoft 365

Access and update your tasks as you work, no matter which app you’re using.

See your tasks where you work

Stay focused and productive wherever you go. See your tasks across your lists as you move between apps and devices.

Manage tasks and work with Microsoft 365

Stay on top of all your tasks

View all your tasks from Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner with Tasks in Microsoft Teams. Plus, create tasks from Teams messages and publish tasks from corporate to frontline workers.

Convert emails to tasks

Flag emails or drag them into the Microsoft To Do pane to create and manage tasks directly in Outlook for the web.

Focus on what matters

Keep track of individual tasks in Microsoft To Do using intelligent features to collect, prioritize, and accomplish what’s most important.

Get more work done as a team

Manage team tasks with Planner. Build Kanban boards, add content-rich tasks, get visual status, and collaborate within Planner or Tasks in Microsoft Teams.

Collaborate on shared Microsoft 365 documents

Use @mentions within comments in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to create and assign tasks. 1  Receive an email notification when you’re assigned a task, see a preview of the document, and reply directly from Outlook.

Get the most out of task management in Microsoft 365

Manage all your tasks in Microsoft Teams

Bring together your individual tasks from Microsoft To Do and team tasks from Planner and manage them all in one place with Tasks in Microsoft Teams.

Align tasks from corporate to the frontline

Plan centrally, manage regionally, and execute locally—all with one task management tool that provides real-time visibility across all your frontline locations.

Choose the right tool for managing work

Determine the best tool for managing your work—Microsoft To Do, Planner, Tasks in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Lists, or Microsoft Project—with our when-to-use guides.

Create tasks from flagged emails

Flag emails in Outlook for the web to add them as tasks in Microsoft To Do and manage them alongside your other tasks using features such as due dates, reminders, and My Day.

See tasks from Planner in Microsoft To Do

Automatically sync your Planner assignments to the dedicated "Assigned to you" list in To Do to manage all your individual tasks in one app.

Read more about task management

Organize your day from start to finish with task management, digital productivity tools to maximize your executive function skills, how task management software can help your teams transition to a hybrid workplace, using task management software to reduce wasted time.

Get best-in-class productivity and task management apps with intelligent cloud services that transform the way you work with Microsoft 365.

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How to Create a Task Tracker in Excel: Free Template

Checking tasks off your to-do list feels pretty awesome, right? If only everything in life gave you that instant sense of accomplishment!

A task list earns its keep by helping you schedule, assign, and track all the work that needs to be done for a project. You can also use it to give stakeholders and team members at-a-glance updates on project progress.

With our free Excel task checklist template, you can keep up with all the to-dos you need to knock out—whether you’re focused on an important work assignment or just want to finish up a few projects around the house. We’ve done all the hard work so you can have all the fun marking things done.

Ready to get started? We’ll show you just how easy it is to take your task list from to-do to ta-da! Here’s what we'll cover:

How to create a task tracker in Excel

How to customize your task list template, how to create an online task tracker in teamgantt.

Let’s start with a simple tutorial on how to keep track of tasks at work using Excel.

1. Download our free Excel task tracker template

At TeamGantt, we know how important it is to ensure projects get done on time and on budget. That's why we created this Excel task list template to make tracking project progress a breeze.

Make this task tracker template your own by adding to-do list items and tasks, assigning task owners, and tracking task status, budgets, and costs.

Download your free Excel task tracker template

2. Add to-do list items and tasks

First, find the T ask Name column on your worksheet, and enter a descriptive name for each task you want to track for a particular day of the week.

3. Indicate the status of each task

This sample to-do list template features four different status options—with icons as easy visual cues—so you can see where each task is at a glance: Not Started , In Progress , Complete , and On Hold .

To assign a status to a task, click on the status dropdown menu in that task’s row, and choose the status that applies to the task you’re working on.

4. Set task due dates

Set clear expectations for your team by entering the deadline for each task in the Due Date column.

5. Assign task owners

Start by specifying which team or department will carry out the work using the Task Type column. Then pair each task with its rightful owner by entering the team member’s name into the Assigned to column.

6. Include task budgets and costs

Use the Hours Budgeted column to let team members know how much time has been budgeted for each task.  

‍Once a task is complete, log the time spent on it in the Actual Hours column.

Tracking daily and monthly tasks in Excel

We’ve designed this task tracker template to track your weekly to-do list. But you can create additional task lists for monitoring daily and monthly to-dos.

Click Insert > Sheet > Blank Sheet to add a new worksheet. Then give each row and column a header label, and use the formatting tools to design your own daily or monthly task tracker.

Once you’ve got the basics squared away, feel free to customize your Excel task list template to ensure it fits your project needs. You can add a title, switch up the colors, add or delete new rows and columns, or even dress your to-do list up with your company logo.

Adding titles

We’ve titled this checklist template “Weekly Task List.” As exciting as that moniker may be, we bet you’ll want to give your to-do checklist your own snazzy (and specific) name.

1. To add or edit the title of your project task list template, double-click your cursor into cell A-2.

2. Enter a new title for your task list. Feel free to include the project name and date range in your title so there’s no doubt what this task tracker covers.

3. Format the header text using the same formatting tools you’d use to format any other text in the worksheet.

Changing colors

Want to apply your own brand colors to your task list? Or make it easy to tell Tom’s tasks from Bill’s? No problem!

1. Click to highlight the cell, row, or column you want to change.

2. Go to Format > Cells , and select the Fill tab.

3. Click on the Background Color dropdown, and choose the new color you want to apply to the cell, row or column you’ve highlighted.

Adding rows/columns

We’ve outlined a few basic to-do list categories to get you started. But there may be other details you need to track along the way. For example, you might want to add a priority column. Or maybe your Monday has a lot more to-dos than the other days of the week.

1. To insert a new row, click Insert > Rows . A new row will be added above the one you currently have selected, using the same formulas and formatting of the row above.

2. To insert a new column, go to Insert > Columns . A new column will be added to the left of the one you currently have selected, using the same formulas and formatting of the column to the left.

Removing rows/columns

We may have included details you simply don’t need to track. That’s okay! Deleting extra info won’t hurt our feelings a bit.

1. To delete an existing row, click on the row you want to remove. Go to Edit > Delete , and choose Entire Row .

2. To delete an existing column, click on the column you want to remove. Go to Edit > Delete , and choose Entire Column .

Adding a company logo

Want to give your project task list template some more flair? Add your company logo to the worksheet.

1. Right-click on the TeamGantt logo/header image in row 1, and select Change Picture .

2. Choose the image file you want to add to the worksheet, and click the Insert button.

Printing the to-do list template

By the time you finish customizing your to-do list template, it’ll be so pretty you just might want to print it out and pin it to the wall—and we don’t blame you.

1. First, let’s set the print area. Simply click and drag your cursor to highlight all the cells you want to print out. Then go to File > Print Area > Set Print Area.

2. If you want to adjust the scale of the checklist to fit on a single page, click on the Page Layout tab. Then go to Margins > Custom Margins and select the Page tab.

3. Once you’ve set the print area and adjusted the scale of your checklist, you’re ready to send your task list to the printer. Click File > Print.

Additional resources

• Project management template library : Use these simple templates in any industry to plan and manage projects, identify and mitigate risk, and communicate effectively at every project step.
• ‍ Gantt chart Excel template : Save time organizing your project plan with our premade Excel gantt chart template! Simply plug in your tasks and dates, and you'll have a presentation-quality Excel gantt chart.

Want to take the tedium out of task lists? Give TeamGantt’s online gantt chart software a try , and create a customized task tracker in minutes.

With TeamGantt, it’s easy to collaborate on work and streamline workflows. Here are just a few of the handy features you—and your team—will have at your fingertips:

• Drag-and-drop simplicity
• Reusable project plan templates
• Project dependencies
• File storage
• Time tracking
• Resource management
• Planned vs. actual timelines

And because TeamGantt is all online, everyone on the team can update tasks in real-time. No more juggling a million different spreadsheets or scrambling to capture last-minute updates before a big meeting!

Sign up for your free account and get started. (No strings attached, we promise!) Once you’re in, here’s a sneak peek at just how easy it is to create and manage task lists in TeamGantt.

Setting up your task list project

Before you can set up tasks, you’ll need to answer a few quick onboarding questions and then create a new project.

1. Start by entering a descriptive name for your project on the project setup page. We called our example project “Weekly Task List.”

2. Then, choose a new Start Date , if you want your list to begin on a day other than today.

3. Next, decide whether you want to start from scratch with a blank project or choose a template from our handy library of pre-built options . To make things super easy for you, we created a Weekly Task List template .

Simply click on the Preview templates icon, expand the Admin & Personal category, and select Weekly Task List to preview the template. If you’d like to use it, select Use Template in the bottom right corner of the window.

4. If not, feel free to choose a different template option or click anywhere outside of the preview window to return to the Create a new project page.

5. Next, select which days of the week you want to assign and track work for this project. The default is Monday through Friday, but you can choose any configuration of days that make sense for your work schedule.

6. Finally, select Create new project to save your changes and get to work.

Adding and editing task lists

Now that you have a project, it’s time to set up your task list! We chose the Weekly Task List template for our example, which gives us a labeled task group for each day of the week.

1. Simply click on each task group field, if you want to rename it.

2. If you need to add more task groups, click +Group of Tasks , and enter the name of your new task group in the blank field that appears below.

3. To add a new task, click +Task and enter a name in the blank that appears below. Then, use the drag-and-drop features to adjust the timelines for each task .

4. To delete a task, hover over it and select the trashcan icon that appears to the right of the task name.

Assigning team members

To invite other users to your project, select the People tab in the top navigation bar of your project. Then, select Invite People to add new users by name and email address.

Once a user has been added to your project, designate them to a task by clicking assign in the Assigned column and selecting the checkbox next to their name.

Here’s an in-depth tutorial on how to invite users and assign them to tasks .

Creating dependencies

Dependencies enable you to control the order of tasks in your project. If one task has to wait for another to get done before it can begin, the dependency will account for that. For example, a designer may not be able to design a landing page until the content’s been written.

1. To add a dependency, click on the gray dot to the right of the first task in the gantt chart.

2. Then drag the dependency line to connect it to the dependent task below.

Changing task colors

To change the color of a task, hover over the task, and choose a new color by clicking on the colored square that appears to the right of the task.

Ready to discover just how easy and fast task tracking can be?

This is just a preview of all the fun you can have with task lists on TeamGantt—but there’s so much more to see!

Sign up for your free TeamGantt account today to learn all about the project management possibilities you could have at your fingertips.

How to create a fully interactive Project Dashboard with Excel – Tutorial

In this article & video series, learn how to create a  fully interactive Project Dashboard with Excel,  as demonstrated on the right. 

You will learn:

• Gantt charts for project planning
• Progress charts for status visualization
• Preparing final dashboard

Part 1 - Project Gantt Chart

Gantt chart  is a classic way to visualize a project’s plan & current status. That is why it forms the corner stone of any Project Management Dashboard. 

In Part 1 of this tutorial, let’s create an interactive, multi-level gantt chart using Excel. Here is a demo of what we shall create.

Resources for the Gantt Chart

Excel files for practice.

• Blank data file
• Completed Gantt Chart file

Gantt Chart - Video Tutorial

I made a fun & detailed video on how to create this Gantt chart with Excel. Watch it below or on my YouTube channel .

Getting the data

Any project is a combination of people & tasks. So in order to create a project plan gantt chart, you need both people & project activity data. Here is the data for our  Project Mega Something. 

Download the blank data file .

Project Plan Data - Preview

Activities Table

People Table

Set relationship between tables

Once we have the data ready, connect people & activity tables. You can create a relationship from Data ribbon > Relationships.

We want to connect Activities Owner column with People Person column.

No need to use X or VLOOKUPs anymore, you can connect tables on a column with Excel.

Learn more about Table Relationships in Excel .

Calculations Worksheet

As our tables are related, we can now calculate all the  necessary numbers  needed for our gantt chart.

In a new worksheet, 

• Insert a pivot table (Excel will create the pivot from your table relationship data model)
• Add Category & activity to row label area
• Add start date and end date to values area
• Set start date “summarize values by” to Min
• For end date, set it to Max
• Set up pivot table in outline format and add sub-totals on top.
• Remove any grand totals.

Your final pivot table should be like below.

Specify Gantt Start date

In a blank cell in this new worksheet, define starting date for our gantt chart visual. You can use a formula like =TODAY()-14 or something else for this.

Name this start date cell as  start.date

Gantt Chart Worksheet

Add a new worksheet and name it Gantt Chart.

In this sheet, set up your gantt chart grid. We will use 67 columns in this fashion.

• Category name
• Person assigned to the task
• 8 to 67 – Dates (narrow columns)

Load up values by either linking Pivot Table values a references or using lookup functions.

You can use XLOOKUP function to get the person & % done values.

All about XLOOKUP function .

Gantt Chart Formulas

We need to set up a formula in our gantt chart grid to show TRUE when a date in the  top row  is between  start  and  end  dates.

You can use AND formula for this. Fill this formula for the entire range.

In my spreadsheet I had 105 rows x 60 columns.

Conditional Formatting Rules

Our gantt chart is nearly ready. We need to add two conditional formatting rules to highlight the project dates & current date.

• Rule #1 : Highlight all TRUE values in the gantt grid
• Rule #2 : Highlight the column that corresponds to TODAY()

Examine the rules from below screenshot.

Finally select the AND formula range and apply custom number format of ;;;

You can use hide values in a range of cells by applying the custom format code ;;;

How to hide values with number formats .

At this stage, your gantt chart should look like below:

To add % done data bars:

• Select % done column and add data bars.
• Set the bar rule to show bar only
• Hide the contents of this column with custom code ;;;

Learn a few more tricks about conditional formatting here .

Team selection slicer feature

Go back to the calculations sheet and add a  team slicer  on your pivot table.

Cut and move this slicer to the gantt chart page.

Your gantt chart is now interactive!!!

Excel slicers offer a great deal of interactivity in your reports. If you have not used them before, I suggest learning a bit about them. Use this handy guide.

Excel slicers – complete guide .

The final gantt chart...

Here is the final gantt chart at this stage.

Excel files for downloading

More gantt charts for you....

• Gantt Chart with Drill-down feature
• Gantt Box Chart - for showing uncertainty in the project
• Gantt Charts + Other useful PM Templates by Chandoo

Part 2 - Beautiful Progress Charts

In Part 2 of this tutorial, we will build beautiful project progress charts with Excel. 

In this section, I will explain how to make a traffic light chart with Excel, as demoed on the right. In the video tutorial, you can learn how to make all 3 charts.

Resources for Project Progress Charts

• Completed Progress Charts File

Video Tutorial - Project Progress Charts

I made a video explaining how to make all three project progress charts. Watch it below or on  my YouTube channel.

Project Traffic Light - Instructions

This will be the shortest part of the tutorial. Imagine you have the project progress value in the cell L3.

Use Conditional formatting on the cell to fill Red color if the value is under 50%, Amber color if the value is under 80% and GREEN else.

See below illustration to understand the rules setup.

Turning this cell to Traffic Light 🚦

Now that L3 can change colors, let’s make it a pretty traffic light.

First, make the % value in L3 disappear with custom cell format code of ;;;

Next, copy L3 and paste it as  Picture Link . This will give you a live snapshot of the traffic light cell.

As we now have a picture, we can apply picture format options to turn this rectangle to a circle shaped traffic light.

• Make the picture larger
• From Picture Format ribbon, crop > aspect ratio > 1:1
• You will get a perfect square
• Use crop > crop to shape > oval
• You will get a circle. If any of the edges look straight, just adjust your crop settings.
• Your traffic light is ready.

See this animated GIF to understand the process.

Finally, add a box behind the traffic light picture to frame it. Apply some shadow effect on the traffic light to get a nice look.

Group everything so you can move or position the traffic light where you need it.

The finished project traffic light

Here is how my finished project traffic light looks.

In the download file, you can find this and two other charts (thermometer and donut progress chart). Refer to my video above for instructions on that other two.

More Project Status Charts for you

• Thermometer Chart
• Gauge Chart with Excel
• Burn down chart template
• Status Charts + Other useful PM Templates by Chandoo

Part 3 - The Dashboard

So far we have created an interactive Gantt Chart and a traffic light progress chart. In the final part of this tutorial, we will fill missing gaps and complete the dashboard.

You will learn,

• Colors, fonts & icons used in the dashboard design
• Making a dynamic  upcoming activities / issues table
• Setting up dashboard tiles
• Adding gantt chart snapshot
• Creating resource loading information
• Finalized project dashboard

Resources for Part 3

• Completed Project Dashboard

Video Tutorial - Part 3 of PM Dashboard

I created a detailed video tutorial explaining how the dashboard is constructed. Watch it below or from my Youtube Channel .

Colors, Icons & Fonts for the Dashboard

It is a good idea to decide the color scheme and visual design of your dashboard before you get too far. In our case, I used below.

• Excel default color scheme +
• #FF555A & #638EC6 for data bars in resource loading chart
• Open Sans Extra Bold for headings
• Calibri for everything else.

Icons: You can add FREE icons from Insert > Icons in Excel 365.

Create Dashboard Sheet

Next, we will create a new worksheet, name it  dashboard.  Create a blank layout like below.

We will fill this up with various charts & tables.

Dynamic Activities / Issues Table

In this part of the tutorial, we will create an interactive Activities / Issues table, as shown below.

Step 1: Issue Tracker Table

We already have activities table. Time to add  issues data  to our project file.  

This table is already available in the  blank data file . Just add it to data model by setting up a relationship between Issue[Onwer] and People[Person].

In the dashboard sheet, add a combo-box form control (Developer Ribbon > Form Controls) and set it to show one of these two values –

Link this control to a cell in calculations worksheet (J8).

Form controls are great for making your charts & dashboards interactive. You can find them in the  Developer ribbon  of Excel.

Learn more about Form Controls and how to use them .

Step 3: Calculating Upcoming 10 Activities & Issues

To calculate upcoming 10 activities / issues, we need this logic:

• Activities: start date is after  today() 
• Issues: close date of the issue is blank

We need to limit both lists to first 10 items.

We can use FILTER() formula to get such lists.

Step 4: Picking one of the lists based on form control input

We can use IF formula to select either of these lists based on what user picked in the form control. Since J8 cell in calculations  tells us what the choice is, we can use that to write our IF formula.

Once we have the results, just copy the values and paste them as reference in dashboard. Our dynamic activities / issues table will be ready.

Dashboard KPI Tiles

Next we will create the dashboard tiles.

Start by placing 4 rounded rectangles with fill color #404040 on the dashboard worksheet.

Next, copy paste the traffic light (part 2 of this tutorial) on first tile.

Project KPI calculations

We need to calculate 3 numbers for the remaining tiles on the dashboard. They are, 

Days remaining

Number of days left to the project completion. This is the difference between last project activity End date and today.

On-going Activities

This is the number of activities that have already started and yet to reach completion.

Pending Issues

How many issues are yet to be closed.

Adding KPI values to the dashboard tiles

On the dashboard, add three text boxes, one per each of the above three numbers. Using formula bar, link the text box value to the calculation worksheet values.

Adjust formatting of the text box. Also, add the icons to signify each KPI tile.

At this stage, our dashboard tiles will look like this:

Bring in the Gantt Chart

We already created a fully interactive gantt chart in part 1 of this tutorial. Just head over to the gantt chart tab on the dashboard, copy a big enough range, go to the dashboard and paste it as  linked picture . 

This will give you a live snapshot of the gantt chart in the dashboard tab.

Adjust the size of the gantt chart picture and add any necessary border around it.

Cut & move the team slicer to the dashboard tab.

The Resource Loading Chart

In the calculations worksheet, create a pivot table to show number of tasks & activities assigned to each person.

Copy the pivot table data, go to dashboard and paste it as  link  in the correct place.

Adjust formatting and apply databars on issue & activity columns. 

Customize the data bar colors as per our color scheme.

And our dashboard is DONE!

The completed dashboard

Feel free to download the full dashboard workbook from here .

Also, check out the video playlist to learn how I constructed this. The videos will give a ton of useful Excel tips as a bonus.

More on Project Management...

Project Management is one of my passions and I talk about it extensively on my site & Youtube.

Please visit below pages to learn more about other cool PM stuff you can do with Excel.

• Budget vs. Actual analysis & charts
• Making a Risk matrix with Excel
• Project Portfolio Dashboard with Excel

Ready to use Project Management Templates

Create awesome project management dashboards and reports using my templates. Trusted by 20,000+ project managers all over the world, these templates are designed to make you look awesome. Create Gantt charts, timelines, time sheets, issue trackers, risk trackers, project dashboards and portfolio dashboards using my templates. Click here to get them today.

16 Responses to “How to create a fully interactive Project Dashboard with Excel – Tutorial”

I'm not getting PowerBI pay dates since long . Please advice.

Want to handle multiple projects which are going at multiple sites. Some activities are common and some are unique. HOW to Handle the same in one sheet at one place where multiple stakeholder can update the progress

Thank you! I appreciate all you do.

How do you get subtotals on top in a tabular pivot, I can only add to the bottom if I select tabular, on top if I use compact?

Sorry for the confusion. I am also using OUTLINE layout.

Hi Chandoo, We have a attendance for civil labour at site. we need to maintain and give payment at the end of every week. the problem is, it the wages varies from Mason to Helper-1 , Helper-2 etc. Also we used to change the site as per the need. Now the task is we need to calculate their wages as per their presence and also need to site wise work detail. Can you help me in this regard. Note: If required I can share the file.

Sethumadhavan

Hi Sethumadhavan

If not resolved till date, share me the file so that I may be of any use to your issue.

Excellent and easy! Congrats

great thanks a lot 🙂

Thanks for the excel dashboard how-to pointers! Dashboard is indeed something important to learn if you want to visualize your data in excel

I recently attended an Excel training program here https://www.ted.com.my/it-training/ms-excel-2013-2016-basic-intermediate/ . I didn't expect that you can actually create project management info using Excel or a spreadsheet. Good info!

Dear Chandoo,

Great dashboard! I would like to add a dynamic progress S-curve for planned and actual progress from Gantt chart. Could you help with it?

Awesome Bro..

Dear Chandoo I have been following you since 2011. THANK YOU for hour amazing work!!!

Thank you so much for your sharing. It's useful a lot for me.

hi, it gives me in porcentage this error #NAME? how ?

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15 Excel Spreadsheet Templates for Tracking Tasks, Costs and Time

Still using spreadsheets to manage your projects? Revolutionize your project management with ProjectManager. Plan projects, manage resources and track progress with powerful features the whole team can use.

Excel spreadsheet templates are a great tool to track the costs, time and performance of your team. We’ve collected ProjectManager’s 15 best Excel spreadsheet templates for tracking that you can download and use for free.

1. Dashboard Template

A dashboard is how you keep track of your work, including the time spent on tasks, what you’re spending and if you’re making progress as planned. ProjectManager’s free dashboard template for Excel gives you an overview of how you’re doing on your work. This information is vital to know if you’re overspending or running behind on your schedule.

ProjectManager’s free dashboard template has several widgets that monitor metrics in your work. For example, there’s a color-coded task graph that shows if your tasks are complete, in progress, not started or overdue. There’s also a workload chart for managing teams and making sure their workload is balanced.

There’s another task graph that measures the duration of the tasks, which is helpful in seeing what’s getting done on time and what’s taking too long. Finally, there’s a cost bar chart to help you stay on budget.

This Excel dashboard template can manage your work, but it’s a static document that must be updated manually. Project tracking software automates that process. ProjectManager is better than Excel spreadsheet templates as it helps to accumulate real-time data, crunch the numbers and display it. Get started with ProjectManager free today.

Not all project management software offers the same project dashboards. ProjectManager’s project dashboard comes equipped with the right project management features to help you keep track of time, tasks, costs and more.

2. Task Tracker Template

ProjectManager’s free task tracker for Excel template can organize and keep track of your work. It’s similar to a to-do list, where you just need to add the work and manage it. Having a task list is the first step to controlling your work.

This task tracker spreadsheet captures the details of your work. Add the name of the task and include dependent tasks. You can assign it to yourself or someone on your team.

Next, set the priority and when you expect to finish. Finally, there’s a column to mark its status, which is essential to track your work. It has everything you need to track your tasks at a basic level with an Excel spreadsheet.

3. Budget Spreadsheet for Cost Tracking

Managing costs in your work is as important as meeting deadlines. ProjectManager’s free budget template for Excel helps you keep to your budget by tracking your financial details on one spreadsheet.

Tasks cost money, and the budget defines the costs of the resources you’ll employ to deliver those tasks to completion. First, the spreadsheet template has a numbered list that corresponds to your work breakdown structure (WBS) . Then, there are labor costs including planned vs. actual hours plus the cost per hour. Materials are broken down by units and cost per unit.

There’s also room for other line items on your budget, which include travel, equipment, fixed and miscellaneous costs. Finally, there are columns to collect the budgeted and actual cost for each line item, then a balance showing if the line item is above or under budget.

Related: How to Track Project Expenses

4. Timeline Template

ProjectManager’s free timeline template in Excel is perfect for scheduling your project from start to finish in Excel. It’s a way to view all your tasks and keep on schedule. You can even add milestones!

To get started with this free timeline template, you first need to list your tasks and give them a name. Each task must have a start date and an end date, plus the time you think it’ll take to complete.

You add all that data to the left side of the template, which is a normal tracking spreadsheet. Then, on the right, you’ll see the timeline that lays out your tasks as horizontal bars across a timeline. It’s easy to see how long it’ll take to complete each task.

Excel spreadsheet templates are good for beginners, but if you want to take your planning even further, upgrade to online software that lets you build timelines in minutes. ProjectManager has online project timelines that update instantly as the team collaborates on tasks. Track costs, workload, planned vs actual progress and more. Get started for free.

5. Action Plan Spreadsheet

Managing work means outlining the steps you must complete to achieve your goals. Use ProjectManager’s free action plan spreadsheet for Excel to track tasks and detail the strategy you’ll use to complete your work on time and within budget.

We’ve broken up this action plan template into three sections. The first is the action steps, which note the priority and list tasks, phases and assignments. There’s also space to note the status of your tasks and track their progress.

Section two of this Excel spreadsheet template is a timeline, with start and due dates, including planned hours. Finally, section three focuses on resources; for example, which department is responsible for which task, what materials are needed and what are the resource costs?

6. Status Report Template

Knowing where you are at any particular point in the project life cycle is how you manage time and costs. Our free status report template is a great tool to track your progress and stay on schedule.

This free status report template is made up of five sections: project information, project status summary, project health, risk management overview and a conclusion that includes recommendations for the future.

A status report is a cornerstone of tracking your work. It’s used in project management and work management alike because it gives managers a picture of their planned vs actual progress. It’s also a powerful tool when presenting to stakeholders.

7. Risk Tracking Spreadsheet

No matter how well-planned your work is, there are unknowns that can impact your progress. Use ProjectManager’s free risk register spreadsheet to help you plan for risks in your work.

This free risk register for Excel has columns to ID the risk to make it easier to track. There’s a column to describe the risk and explain how it’ll impact the work you’re doing if it goes from a risk to an actual issue .

For each risk you identify on the template, you can add a risk response, which is the response you’ll take if the risk actualizes. You can also note the risk level. Then, if you’re working in a team, you can assign the risk so that the team member is responsible for identifying and rectifying it.

8. Change Tracking Spreadsheet

Download ProjectManager’s free change tracking spreadsheet for Microsoft Excel to manage change when it impacts your work management. It’ll help you control change so it doesn’t make you spend too much overtime or incur additional costs.

A change log Excel spreadsheet is one of the most important Microsoft Excel templates we offer. It’s a spreadsheet template that captures change when it happens. You can number changes for better tracking and note when the change first came up and who discovered or requested it.

You can then prioritize the change, and you or a team member can take ownership to see it through to completion. The Excel spreadsheet tracks the change from discovery to recovery and ensures that no change order is lost in the cracks.

9. Time Tracking Spreadsheet

There’s no better template to track the time you spend on your tasks than with ProjectManager’s free time tracking spreadsheet . This timesheet is great for you or team members to record the amount of time spent on work.

This timesheet Excel spreadsheet template has space for your name or the name of the employee, their department, supervisor and hourly rate. The template collects their hours, such as their start time and end time for their workday. There’s even a place to add overtime and lunch.

Then, the total for the week is added and multiplied by the pay rate to show the total amount the employee is owed. Finally, there’s a line for the employee to sign and the supervisor to look it over and sign it, if accurate.

10. Multiple Project Tracking Template

When you’re managing a portfolio or program, you have to monitor all your projects in one place to make insightful decisions as to how to allocate resources. Using our free multiple-project tracking template for Excel gives you a high-level overview of every project for which you’re responsible.

Once you download the free Excel template, you’ll find it’s formatted with three projects, one stacked on top of the other. You can copy and paste to add as many projects as needed. You can also add columns if you need to track something not already on the template.

Each project spreadsheet allows you to list all the project tasks by name and description, as well as if they’re dependent on another task. There’s space to add who’s assigned to each task. Each task has a start and planned end date, and planned cost, with an actual end date and actual cost to help you track the project.

11. Issue Tracking Template

Issues are problems that arise while executing your project. These issues must be quickly identified and resolved to keep the project on schedule and within its budget. With our free issue-tracking template for Excel , you have the tools to monitor the progress of resolving those issues.

The free template is ideal to capture risks, which become issues if they in fact show up in your project. When they do, you already have them described in the template and what their potential impact is. Next, you can define its priority, from low to critical, which helps you determine which risks need your immediate attention.

There’s also a place to note the date the issue first was discovered and when it was closed, as well as the team member who’s responsible for resolving it. Finally, the free template states the department that’s handling the issue and there’s a column to note its status when tracking the issue.

12. To-Do List Template

Everyone has work to do, and getting that work done efficiently requires task management. At its most basic, that means having a list of your tasks. It’s the first step to getting organized. That’s where our free to-do list for Excel comes in handy.

A to-do list is a simple but highly effective tool. Simply list the tasks you’ve been assigned or you can even use it for household chores. Next, you’ll want to give each task a start and due date. This is the duration or timeframe in which you want the work completed.

Now, you’ll want to track your progress. The free to-do list template shows the percentage complete for each task. It’s a satisfying feeling to see the cell move from 25 percent to 100 percent. Then there’s a column to note the progress. Before you know it, your work is done.

13. Inventory Template

If you’re a manufacturer or have a company with which you carry stock that you need to run your business, then you need our free inventory template for Excel . Use it to prevent production delays by keeping track of what you’re warehousing.

Use this free template to record the level of your inventory and track its turnover. First, each line is numbered to make it easier to find the item you want. Then the item is listed and described, with the unit price noted and the quantity you have in stock.

Now you can calculate the inventory price, which is the unit price multiplied by the number in stock. This Excel spreadsheet template does this automatically. There’s a column to note whether you need to reorder, what level to reorder, how long it takes to restock and what that reorder quantity should be.

14. Progress Report Template

Project reports are essential for a number of reasons. One, they help you monitor your progress and performance, and two, they’re a great tool for keeping stakeholders updated. Our free progress report template for Word captures an overview of the activities and tasks that occurred over a specific period.

The free progress report is broken up into a number of different sections. There’s a summary, which provides a quick overview of what’s to follow, including pertinent data, such as the project scope, schedule, cost and risk for the time period being reported on.

Then there’s a section in this Excel spreadsheet template that goes over the tasks that have been executed over a period of time covered in the report. There’s space to note the status of tasks that aren’t yet completed and a section to list issues, talk about the budget and more. It’s a great way to capture a snapshot of the project in time.

15. Work Schedule Template

Need help managing your human resources or operations planning? Check out our free work schedule template for Excel . This free template lists all your employees and their working hours, including responsibilities, over a day, week or month.

Use the work schedule template to keep your employees productive and help with tracking your resource utilization and scheduling. You can also use it to prioritize tasks and balance your team’s workload, which leads to greater productivity and happier employees.

Our free spreadsheet template has a weekly and monthly work schedule. Both list your employees, their tasks, which project they’re working on and then their hours, either day-by-day or over the course of a month. This will help most organizations and even long-term projects.

Use ProjectManager to Track Time, Costs and Tasks Better Than Excel

Templates and Excel spreadsheets for tracking are great, but as noted, they can only do so much. ProjectManager is online work management software that connects everyone, no matter where they work, what time, department or skill level. It does so in real-time to ensure that everyone is collaborating and working on the most recent data.

Automatically Fill Out Timesheets

Take timesheets, for example. Instead of having your employee fill out the timesheet, ProjectManager’s timesheets autofill their tasks and update the time they’ve spent. This streamlines payroll but also offers a window into tracking the time they spend on their tasks. That way, you know if they’re meeting their quota. Once submitted, timesheets are locked and secure.

Work the Way That Suits You

Multiple project views allow everyone on the team to work how they want. Managers can plan ahead on Gantt charts that show all their tasks on a timeline. The duration bar that connects each task’s start and end dates automatically shows progress based on how much of it is shaded. Teams can use task lists, kanban boards or calendars if they prefer, all of which are updated and show progress. No tool is more flexible for planning and tracking work.

Generate One-Click Reports in Seconds

Tracking time, costs and more is easy with ProjectManager’s one-click reports. Get status reports, reports on tasks, timesheets, expenses and more. These reports take complicated data and turn it into insightful and easy-to-read reports to monitor progress and more. Reports can also be filtered to see only the data you want and then shared to keep stakeholders updated.

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software for teams. Our real-time tool tracks time, costs and more to ensure you’re always on schedule and never spending over your budget. Join the 35,000+ people using our software to track tasks, cost and time. Get started with ProjectManager free today.

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

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