How to Create a Custom WordPress User Dashboard
The WordPress user dashboard is a powerful tool for managing your website. It provides site administrators and managers easy access to user content, analytics, and other important website data. With the user dashboard, you can quickly access relevant information about your WordPress site, such as users online, posts created, lifetime value, location data, WordPress logins, and more. Additionally, it allows you to customize the look of your views, manage user accounts, and view analytics data and reports. In this article, we’ll explain how to create a custom WordPress dashboard for yourself or your clients.
What is a custom WordPress admin dashboard
A custom WordPress admin dashboard is a custom interface within WordPress, created using a WordPress admin plugin, that offers administrators or users appropriate permissions a highly personalized and efficient way to manage user-related tasks, such as user roles, user permissions, and user data. WordPress custom admins often include additional tools, dashboard widgets, custom reports, custom login pages, or shortcuts for quick access to critical user management functionalities, making it easier to customize WordPress dashboard as well as oversee, organize, and control various aspects of user management within a WordPress website.
WordPress as a content management system (CMS) provides a default dashboard for website owners and their clients. While the default dashboard is functional, it may not meet all the specific needs of your website. This is where having a custom WordPress client dashboard comes in handy.
The Users Insights custom WordPress User Dashboard is a powerful tool for managing your WordPress users. It provides access to the WordPress admin area or the “backend” of the site, allowing you to customize, manage, and control all aspects of your WordPress user management. You can access the Users Insights admin dashboard plugin via the standard WordPress admin.
When you log in to your WordPress admin account, the first page you will see is the WP Admin Dashboard, also known as the ‘Admin Panel’. From here, you can access all areas of your site, including settings, plugins, themes, posts, and pages. From there, you can access the two types of user dashboards that come with the Users Insights plugin. The standard user management dashboard and the user reports dashboard. We will go into detail about the different use cases for these later in the article.
What is the WordPress backend?
The WordPress backend, also known as the WordPress admin or WordPress dashboard, is the secure area of a WordPress website where administrators and authorized users manage site functionality, content, and user management. It provides access to administrative tools and settings, enabling user registration, user role management, and content control.
How to create a custom user dashboard in WordPress
To create a custom user dashboard in WordPress, all you have to do is install the Users Insights plugin. The Users Insights plugin, known for its robust user management features, facilitates this by allowing website owners and admins to customize and display specific user data and controls. The user dashboard gives you an overview of all the different aspects of your website, including user stats, notes, and activity updates. You can also access the admin menus and dashboard widgets from here.
With customization tools, you can customize the WordPress user dashboard to better suit your needs. This could include adding new user segments or changing what data items are displayed in the user table, such as analytics or recent activity. You can add custom fields to the dashboard that provide useful information about your WordPress users. Customizing the WordPress admin dashboard allows you to create a personalized experience for yourself and other team members, making it easier to manage your WordPress users.
Customizing the WordPress user dashboard
The default Users Insights dashboard can be customized in several ways. The first step is to remove any unwanted table columns. Then, you can add new columns to the dashboard, as well as reorder existing columns.
Displaying User-Specific Data
One of the benefits of having a custom dashboard is the ability to display user-specific data. To retrieve user-specific data, you can use the Users Insights smart filters, use the built-in Users Insights modules (from the settings page) or use the custom fields feature for more specialized data retrieval. To display user-specific data on the dashboard, you can use the available table fields or add the data via custom fields.
Adding additional columns to the user table
In addition to customizing the dashboard, you can also add custom columns to the dashboard. Adding new columns to the WordPress user table is easy and straightforward. This can be done using the “Eye” button in the right settings menu. Clicking on this button will open a drop-down menu that allows you to check and un-check what columns will be added to the user table. There is an option to also search for a specific menu item you might want to add or remove from the dashboard.
Additionally, from here, you can control the order in which the data is shown in the dashboard table. Simply by using the drag and drop feature in the right section of the available table fields menu.
Creating a user profile section
Another benefit of having a custom dashboard is the ability to create a custom user profile section. This section can be used to display information about the user, such as their name, email, location, and profile picture. Users Insights automatically creates a custom user profile page that contains all the available information about a specific WordPress user in one place.
Saving and retrieving user data
The custom dashboard should also be able to save and retrieve user data. To save custom user data, you can use the custom fields feature or a WordPress plugin specializing in saving user data. If you want to create custom user field data, you can go to the custom fields page of Users Insights. This will open up a page where you can add custom fields to the WordPress user table. Once you have added your desired fields, your new columns should appear on the user list table. With this method, it is quite easy to add custom columns to the WordPress user table without having any programming knowledge.
To save data to the custom field of a specific WordPress user, you will need to open the user profile page and locate the specific field in the profile fields section. Then you can click on the edit button and depending on the field type specified, you will get the different options to add and save custom user data.
Custom WordPress analytics and reports dashboard
A custom WordPress reports and analytics dashboard can help you get a better understanding of your WordPress website’s performance and user engagement. Having real-time data readily available can provide insights and help you make informed decisions about your website’s growth and direction.
Benefits of reports, analytics, and stats
A custom WordPress reports and analytics dashboard provides numerous benefits to users and website managers, including enhanced data visualization, improved data accessibility, and better decision-making capabilities. With a custom dashboard, site owners can quickly and easily access important WordPress user data, such as website page visits, user engagement, and lifetime value, in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format. Monitoring key metrics and data in real-time also enables users to respond quickly to any changes or trends, helping to maximize website performance and drive desired outcomes.
Add an interactive chart to your dashboard
Adding an interactive chart to a dashboard can be a great way to visualize data and provide valuable insights. Widgets are small components that can be added to dashboards to customize the data display. An interactive chart widget allows users to interact with the data being presented, giving them the ability to drill down into details or compare different sets of data side-by-side. You can add or remove a widget from the custom WordPress reports dashboard via the right-sided “Eye” menu.
Manage or limit dashboard access with user roles & permissions
The management of user data involves not only storage and retrieval but also user authentication and authorization. WordPress, a robust content management system, requires a comprehensive understanding of user roles and permissions for effective access control to the WordPress dashboard. User roles facilitate the administration of the admin area by imposing restrictions or limitations to access based on the role assigned. This enforces security measures and prevents unauthorized access to restricted sections. Custom user roles can be established and allocated to designated groups or individuals with varying access privileges. The proper configuration of user roles and permissions is a critical aspect in establishing a secure and manageable WordPress dashboard, ensuring secure access and adequate control over data access.
Users Insights introduces some custom user capabilities that can be used to provide access to non-administrator users to the Users Insights pages. These capabilities can be managed via a dedicated role management plugin, like the User Role Editor plugin.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating a custom WordPress dashboard for yourself or your clients provides a great deal of flexibility and customization options. By removing unwanted widgets, adding custom dashboard widgets, creating a user profile section, handling user submissions and updates, and handling user authentication and authorization, you can create a dashboard that meets the specific needs of your WordPress website and users.