A Beginner’s Guide to Dashboards in ClickUp (With 15 Use Case Examples)

Erica Golightly

Senior Writer

December 2, 2021

Max 12min read

You’ve spent hours sizing and resizing charts while agonizing over too much or too little data. It’s painful to create a dashboard from scratch and arguably more painful to look at it and understand the data’s story.

That’s why companies who want high-level visualization and insight into their company’s activities invest in the best resources—like a mission control center in ClickUp—to create interactive dashboards that tell the oddities, patterns, and trends in the data story.

Dashboards in ClickUp bring together sources of information to quickly access data in real-time, understand popular metrics, spot bottlenecks in workflows, and more.

By the end of this article, you’ll learn:

• How to appropriately match your reporting type with a widget in ClickUp Dashboards
• Best practices for ClickUp Dashboard design and function
• Multiple ways to show the same desired KPI
• Guiding questions to ask as you build your ClickUp Dashboard

Let’s get started!

📊 What are Dashboards in ClickUp?

Dashboards in ClickUp minimize the noise we typically see from status reports sent in by direct reports recapping what we already know about the project. As a single source of truth, a ClickUp Dashboard adds value by doubling as a task manager and reporting tool where you can:

• Quickly scan the Dashboard to understand the main takeaway
• Edit tasks, workloads, and within the Dashboard to fix oddities
• Add notes to provide missing context
• Host discussions to keep project communication in one place, and more

Insanely powerful and unrivaled, you can build better versions of the same Dashboard over time with minimal effort as company KPIs shift or team members change.

🖱 How many clicks does it take to get to the metric your audience is looking for?

Your report is meaningless if your audience has to sift for information. ClickUp Dashboards provide central access to data sources without the fluff, so you’re communicating key insights.

⚖️ Workload balance

When you’re approached by a person on your team asking for due date extensions, naturally, you’ll pull up their task list and adjust. Unfortunately, while your proactiveness has the right intention, the result could have negative impacts.

Connect with others on the team first to explain a timeline shift because of workload capacities. Then, they’ll have an opportunity to raise any flags, so progress isn’t disrupted.

👀 Scannability

If your audience can’t tell what your Dashboard is communicating within the first ten seconds, you’ve lost them. It helps to know what KPIs they need to know and what information is most important to them.

📈 Real-time data

Half the battle in creating any type of reporting is where to pull sources of information. Are you manually connecting the dots? Try automating the process as much as possible so you’re not wasting time.

Suppose you’re not typically the person who volunteers setting up and performing maintenance of project reporting because it’s hard to understand (aka boring). In that case, you’ll be impressed with customizable reporting widgets in ClickUp Dashboards.

🧳 15 ClickUp Dashboard Use Cases

You don’t need to be an expert in project management to use ClickUp Dashboards. From a simple goal tracker to identifying campaign metrics, here are recommended widgets for different use cases.

📌 1:1 Performance Meetings + HR

People Leaders get actionable insights into performance management and employee development to give and receive reviews from Dashboards.

📌Construction

There are many moving parts in construction—and not just on location! With Dashboards, project managers can monitor key risks, pull in accounting systems, and create job schedules from anywhere.

📌Customer Service/Support

Gather information on the spot from Dashboards to make effective business decisions without disrupting your customers’ experience.

📌Development

Act on performance issues and bugs before the team is flooded with Slack messages from other departments! Teams can customize dashboards to any agile process for optimal team collaboration.

📌Event Planning

It takes a village (and streams of resources) to plan and launch events. Dashboards connect internal teams, clients, and vendors from small to large events without a single email.

📌Education

They’re all accessible from one place—essential course information, Docs, and assignments! Get the most out of class management and planning with Dashboards.

📌Finance

Finance professionals can quickly access and analyze budgets in real-time to generate reports half the time. Get actionable insights to make smarter strategic decisions with the data story behind the reasoning.

📌Healthcare

With multiple sources pulled into one view, Dashboards quickly digest the data that overburdens health systems. As a result, healthcare professionals can focus their time and attention on patient care without stressing missed information.

📌Marketing

Marketing teams are teams within a team. Customize Dashboards to any requirement: Email Marketing, SEO, Social, Google Analytics, Content Marketing, Digital Analytics, and more!

📌Personal

While you’re busy making moves in your work life, don’t forget to dedicate time to nurture meaningful relationships! Use Dashboards as a personal CRM and daily planner to get things done.

📌Product

Which tasks need a follow-up? Who needs help prioritizing their workload? Get answers to questions with Dashboards without sending a meeting invitation for a “quick” touch base call.

📌Quality Assurance

Keep up with trends and get insight into overall performance backed by the data story. QA teams can customize dashboards to suit any preference with unlimited ways to view high-level work.

📌Remote Team

Lost in translation? Not for remote teams who use Dashboards. Although team members are separated by locations or time zones, Dashboards serve as a single source of truth to stay aligned.

📌Sales

Next to sales goals and forecasting metrics, monitor and update KPIs and OKRs directly from Dashboards. Are there bottlenecks or processes that need addressing? Dashboards help teams quickly analyze the data and course correct.

📌Team

Instead of reviewing a plain Excel spreadsheet, screen share the Dashboard at the next stand-up meeting to quickly take action on urgent tasks.

🤩 Popular widgets for Dashboards in ClickUp

Widgets are the building blocks of ClickUp Dashboards and where the customization fun begins. At first glance, it may look intimidating because there are so many to choose from, but that’s the secret sauce: it’s not limited to any workflow. Later, we’ll walk through a Dashboard formula to demonstrate.

If you’re new to Dashboards in ClickUp, let’s cover popular widgets to spark some ideas for your Dashboard!

⌚️ Time Tracking widgets

Are individuals or entire teams going over their capacity? Which projects are taking up the most time?

With accurate information, owners and managers can adjust the Dashboard to maintain healthy workflows.

• Time Reporting: see tasks that have time tracked
• Timesheet: see a timesheet
• Billable Report: track billable time entries

Related: How to Use Time Tracking to Finish Projects Faster

📍 Status widgets

Anyone involved in the project can quickly view a chart to understand how statuses are used throughout your ClickUp Spaces, Folders, or Lists.

• Workload by Status: display a pie chart, bar chart, or breakdown of your statuses usage across locations
• Number of Tasks in Progress: see how many tasks are in progress in any location
• Number of Tasks Completed: See how many tasks are done in any location
• Time in Status: see the total time across multiple tasks as a bar chart
• And more!

Related: The Ultimate Guide To Resource Management (2021)

🎨 Custom widgets

Custom widgets add a special touch to the relationship between data and visualization.

Add Text Block and Chat widgets to communicate project details in one place!

• Line Chart and Pie Chart: custom charts with any data
• Portfolio: categorize and track the progress of Lists and Folders
• Text Block: Add rich text, images, and even use /slash commands to add context
• Chat: a conversation widget
• And more!

Related: The Ultimate Guide To Enterprise Project Management

👩‍💻 Assignees widgets

Workload management can be time-consuming if you are limited in your software tool. ClickUp Dashboards gives you a filter option to adjust the scope of your widget.

View what tasks or subtasks your team is working on, as well as what might’ve been forgotten.

• Tasks by Assignee: display a pie chart, bar graph, or battery of your total tasks by Assignee
• Total Unassigned Tasks: see how many tasks are not assigned in any location
• Total Assigned (Not Completed) Tasks: see how many tasks have assignees in any location

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Visual Project Management

🛎 Table widgets

During busy peaks in our work week, we can miss important notifications.

Table widgets bring in information from specific areas of your Workspace to show where your team might be burdened.

• Task List: create a List view using tasks from any location
• Completed Report: tasks completed broken down by assignee
• Worked On: see what people have worked on determined by activity on a task
• Workspace Points: see who’s communicating efficiently, checking their tasks, and providing the most output
• Who’s Behind: see who’s behind on notifications and overdue tasks
• Activity View: create an Activity view

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Workload Management

🎯 Goals widgets

Track and celebrate your team’s progress and contributions in real-time with the Goals widget.

The Goals widget is a staple for any Dashboard use case because you can analyze progress next to other information and avoid looking at different places to stay up to date.

Related: How To Use ClickUp To Set Goals For Your Team

🏃‍♀️ Sprint widgets

The perfect complement to Sprints you’ve built in the Sprints ClickApp! For teams using an Agile or Scrum workflow, Sprint widgets are a must-have for your Dashboards.

• Burnup: amount of work done in a sprint
• Burndown: amount of work left to do in a sprint
• Cumulative Flow: amount of work at each stage in sprints
• Velocity Chart: totalamount of work done in two or more sprints
• And more!

Related: What Is Agile Project Management? Everything You Need To Know

📺 Embed widgets

If you have documents, spreadsheets, forms, videos—anything with a link—create as many Custom Embed widgets you need to support your Dashboard’s goal.

Or, use one of the available widgets to bring in supported apps and websites with a link or embed code:

• Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets
• YouTube
• Figma
• InVision
• Typeform
• Twitter

Related: How To Build A Project Management Dashboard (2021 Guide)

👣 A ClickUp Dashboard Formula to Follow

If you wonder how to set up your ClickUp Dashboard that checks off your design and function expectations, you’re not alone. There are businesses like yours who are new to ClickUp or haven’t tapped into the full potential of ClickUp Dashboards.

Disclaimer: the most challenging part of this process is going to be the beginning. This is the biggest problem with any type of reporting:

If you don’t understand the goal of your Dashboard, you will drop it like a hot potato within the first week.

Below is a straightforward formula you can use to start your Dashboard creation on the right foot.

Remember: the end goal should always be to communicate key insights quickly, clearly, and powerfully. ⭐️

Ready to see it in action? Our example will be a Dashboard objective we can all use right away: Work Goals.

1️⃣ Define your Dashboard audience and data story

• Title: My Goals
• Audience: Myself
• Problem: I don’t know if I’m working on tasks that actually contribute to company initiatives.
• Data story: I want a single source of truth to view my weekly tasks.

Not a bad start, but we can do better:

• Title: My Weekly Goals
• Audience: Myself
• Data story: I want a single source of truth to view my weekly tasks related to Q4 company objectives.

Now our data story is clear—which is the most critical step in our build. Without this clarity, we could create confusion and frustration when focusing on the wrong things.

2️⃣ Choose the right KPIs to support the data story

• KPI #1: Number of tasks in progress
• KPI #2: Weekly scorecard of targets
• KPI #3: Number of tasks overdue
• KPI #4: Q4 company objectives List
• KPI #5: Task status breakdown

Spend some time getting your KPIs down and refer to your data story if you’re feeling stuck. The more specific you are, the better your time is spent.

3️⃣ Select the widget for the reporting type

KPI #1: Number of tasks in progress

I am looking for the total number of tasks in progress for this KPI, so I’ll use the Calculation widget.

We’re doing great! Let’s keep going!

KPI #2: Weekly scorecard of targets

The Goals widget is perfect for this!

We have to click on the scorecard to view my targets. Maybe we can take this a step further and show the actual scorecard since we only need one. So instead of the Goals widget, let’s use the Custom Embed widget.

That’s much better! Fewer clicks. 😉

KPI #3: Number of tasks overdue

Similar to our first KPI, we need the Calculation widget to view the total number.

Have you done this before?💪

KPI #4: Q4 company objectives List

Another Custom Embed widget will work for this KPI. We’ll be able to edit the Doc from our Dashboard.

KPI #5: Task status breakdown

A pie chart will work for this KPI to see where the bulk of my tasks are living.

4️⃣ Organize your widgets to create a visual hierarchy and balance

Now we begin customizing our Dashboard layout!

This part of the formula will take a few tries but remembering that our overarching goal is to communicate key insights quickly, clearly, and powerfully will keep us in the right direction.

Version 1

How does this look? 🤔

1. Functionality thoughts:
   1. All important widgets are above the fold, so I don’t have to scroll down
   2. Widgets display the KPIs I need
2. Visual thoughts:
   1. Not the best layout to see Weekly Targets next to Q4 Goals (which is our data story)
   2. The Workload by Status widget is small and at the bottom

Let’s try again!

Version 2

5️⃣ Ask your audience for feedback

Let’s go through our previous thoughts.

1. Functionality thoughts:
   1. All important widgets are above the fold, so I don’t have to scroll down ✅
   2. Widgets display the KPIs I need ✅
2. Visual thoughts:
   1. Not the best layout to see Weekly Targets next to Q4 Goals, which is most important (Our Weekly Targets and Creative Q4 Goals widgets are next to each other, so this doubles points for visual and functionality! ✅)
   2. The Workload by Status widget is small and at the bottom (Our pie chart is at the top to quickly glance at the progress! ✅)
   3. Our Dashboard is easy to read from left to right ✅

🛠 Build a Dashboard in ClickUp today

You crushed it! 🎉

How easy was creating a Dashboard in ClickUp with this formula? Now that you have the basics use this foundation to create basic (or advanced) ClickUp Dashboards!

Dashboards are a great tool not only for personal use but also for sharing with your colleagues. Don’t let your team walk away less informed (or worse, confused) because the information wasn’t clear to influence decision-making.

If you’ve spent half a workday building a dashboard in Excel on more than one occasion only to start over because the data completely changed in the last 22 minutes, try ClickUp for free today and create a powerful Dashboard that will promote better decision-making and productivity. This one’s for you. 🤝