Becoming a more efficient grantmaking operation relies on having quick and easy access to your most pressing tasks and data points.
A dashboard that summarizes real-time finances, workflows, and grant request statuses can be a game changer for productivity – which is why GivingData recently launched a brand new homepage in our grants management platform. This new dashboard gives grantmakers a valuable snapshot of their work and financials right as they log in.
An example of what a user might see when they login to GivingData. Each quadrant of the new homepage design is configurable by site administrators.
Goal of the new homepage
We had three primary goals in mind while designing the new homepage: 1) Give users quick insights about their work, 2) Provide a launchpad to access commonly used tools, and 3) Provide a personalized experience.
All three of these goals advance our mission of empowering grantmakers with the tools they need to work more efficiently. By having all of this information accessible from one screen, users can more quickly prioritize their tasks and navigate to the data and processes they use most.
Prior to releasing the new homepage, Breanna Wong, Principal of Product Design at GivingData, conducted user testing at GDConnect 2022 to gather feedback and confirm that the design met the outlined goals. "Users expressed that the new homepage will make their work more efficient because it surfaces key insights, guiding them to take action,” she says. “They also offered valuable ideas for new widgets that can be added to the homepage in the future."
Configuring the four widgets
The new homepage contains four sections, and each section contains a configurable widget that can be customized by site administrators.
The “My Default Dashboard” widget is located in the top-left corner of the page, allowing each user to pin their preferred dashboard in the top row - for example, a grants manager may want to place the organization's main payments and approvals dashboard here, while program staff might prefer to see a dashboard filtered to show only their program or portfolio data.
This widget allows users to set a default dashboard of their most important data.
Requirements and Workflow Tasks that are assigned to the user are displayed in the top-right space. In the second row are widgets displaying the user’s five most recently viewed organization and request records, and five most recently viewed searches.
Site administrators have the ability to edit the layout and configuration of the widgets.
Today, grantmakers can create their personalized homepages using the four widgets described here, but additional widgets will be available in the future to give users even more personalized control over their homepage experience. To see a tour of the new homepage design, download this webinar.