June 2, 2023

How do I create an Employee Dashboard on Microsoft?

Caroline

Caroline

5 min reading

The Employee Dashboard (or Personal Dashboard) is one of the cornerstones of the Digital Workplace.

This dashboard centralizes all employee information and applications, creating a modern, versatile workspace.

Would you like to take advantage of the features of your Microsoft environment by setting up an Employee Dashboard? Here's everything you need to know.

What is an Employee Dashboard?

An Employee Dashboard is an interface that enables users to access all company resources from a single location. Users can find their profile, tools and applications, as well as personalized content (targeted news, tasks, etc.).

The benefits of an Employee Dashboard

Ultimately, the Employee Dashboard simplifies the flow of information and navigation between all the company's tools, by centralizing everything on a single page.

The prize:

  • Productivity gains (employees no longer waste time searching for information) ;
  • Improved internal collaboration (tasks are better organized and messages flow more smoothly);
  • And also improved commitment.

It's important to understand that each employee has different needs in terms of applications and communication. Offering your teams the possibility of having a workspace customized to their use will enhance their well-being at work, and therefore improve productivity.

☀️ To find out more, discover how the Personal Dashboard is the ally of your Digital Workplace .

The Viva Connections dashboard

As an ecosystem of integrated tools, Microsoft365 is particularly well-suited to creating employee dashboards. It also offers maximum security, and makes it easy to integrate complementary applications.

Did you know? Viva Connections is a Microsoft solution for creating employee dashboards. It takes the form of a dashboard, providing quick and easy access to company information. The content of the dashboard is taken from SharePoint and can be customized, thanks to Adaptive Cards that link users to Teams and external applications.

The Viva Connections module can therefore be used to create an employee Dashboard framework, giving access to all Microsoft Teams and SharePoint functionalities.

📢 To find out more, discover All about Microsoft Viva | Employee experience platform

Create an employee Dashboard on Microsoft365

The MODA Dashboard, to go even further

MODA is a Microsoft Teams application that complements Viva Connections. It facilitates access to the intranet, insight portal and training catalog.

With MODA, you can design, create and customize Dashboards in just a few clicks, thanks to a Plug & Play rollout. MODA allows you to :

  • Improve and synthesize your internal communications;
  • Centralize information and business tools for your employees;
  • Centralize essential information from your Teams group;
  • Facilitating the Onboarding of new arrivals

Unlike Viva, MODA doesn't require advanced configurations and integrations, and can be customized directly by the end-user.

💡To find out more, discover the MODA app, winner of the BeMyApp competition.

How do I set up an Employee Dashboard?

Define use cases

It's important to define your use cases before setting up your Employee Dashboards. A use case is a description of a situation or scenario in which a product, system or technology is used to meet a specific need. It's a way of describing how a real or hypothetical user interacts with a given product or solution to achieve a particular goal or solve a particular problem.

Here are a few examples of MODA Dashboard use cases:

Internal communication

By creating a customized Dashboard with MODA, you can prioritize information, distribute it specifically to a target audience and notify employees of important publications. MODA helps alleviate internal communication problems by providing employees with the data they need, without overwhelming them with unnecessary data.

Productivity

With MODA, you can create customized dashboards, providing each team with the information and links they need to carry out their project, facilitating collaboration and making it easier to achieve objectives.

Onboarding

MODA streamlines the Onboarding process by creating an ephemeral dashboard dedicated to new arrivals in Teams. The Dashboard enables the new employee to easily obtain administrative information, and contact their manager and colleagues in just a few clicks.

Optimization for field teams

MODA allows you to create a simple, comprehensive Dashboard integrated with the Teams mobile application, so that employees in the field can follow company news, check their to-do lists and view the organization's social network feed directly from their smartphone.

Integrate the Employee Dashboard into the rest of your Digital Workplace

You've got it: having a personal Dashboard is a real advantage for employees and companies alike. But if it's not integrated with the rest of your business tools, it will be under-utilized, and then gradually abandoned. Fortunately, as we mentioned earlier, it is possible to link it to several tools, such as :

By integrating your Dashboard with the tools of your choice, you ensure that it's easily accessible and regularly used. And don't forget that you can make regular improvements if new needs arise.

Dashboard design: choosing the right widgets

Now let's get down to the nitty-gritty!

Once you've identified your needs, you can select the components that will make your Dashboard a real digital work tool, indispensable to your teams on a daily basis.

In practice, the Dashboard is made up of a grid of Widgets. A Widget is a small interactive element that can be integrated into a web page or application to provide a specific feature or information. Widgets are generally graphs, forms, buttons, drop-down menus, calendars, to-do lists and so on.

Each brings a different feature, and together they form a dashboard. Some features are adapted to the user and their profile.


MODA : Personnal Dashboard on Microsoft
MODA

The essential features of an Employee Dashboard

Here's a list of the main features of our MODA Dashboard application, integrated with Microsoft Teams.

👉 Good news: MODA is now available in the Microsoft Teams Store!

View and read your e-mails from the Dashboard with the "Mails" feature

This feature displays the Dashboard user's e-mails. You can define the number of mails to be displayed. A 'View All' button redirects the user to Outlook.

Convenient for quick and easy access to all your messages.

View your To Do List from the Dashboard with "task list".

This tool offers intelligent daily planning, with personalized suggestions to help employees update their to-do lists. To Do List also offers a centralized display of all tasks associated with a Microsoft account.

The result: better concentration throughout the day.

View your calendar from the Dashboard with "meetings" and "events".

This component displays the user's upcoming meetings. The 'View All' button redirects users to their Outlook calendar. No need to waste long minutes searching for information: this feature clearly displays all upcoming meetings and events.

View your workgroups from the Dashboard with "Workgroup"

Workgroups are areas for thematic exchange between employees. The Workgroup Widget provides quick access to all these groups. The result: improved knowledge sharing and stronger links between employees.

View your Teams channels from the Dashboard with "My Teams channels".

Discussion channels refer to work themes, depending on the team created. Announcements can be made and options added. A "General" channel is present by default, which can be used as the main interface for generic conversations and announcements. This allows employees to be better connected and information to flow smoothly and efficiently.

View a personalized news feed from the Dashboard with "My feeds".

The "My feeds" feature allows users to subscribe to specific themes. Once the subscriptions have been chosen by the user, the feature will bring up the latest content relating to these themes.

For users, this means constant access to tailored, personalized information.

View your working documents from the Dashboard with "My latest documents".

This component gives users access to all their latest working documents, optimizing their knowledge management.

⭐ To find out more, see how to turn SharePoint into a DMS

Easy access to your favorite tools through "My Applications" shortcuts

"My Applications" is a feature that displays users' favorite applications, using thumbnails with quick links. These shortcuts give users quick and easy access to the applications they use most every day. In the absence of favorites, the first applications are displayed instead, in the order set by administrators.

Conclusion

Thanks to the Employee Dashboard, employees can access all company resources from a single location, and greatly modernize their working habits. There's no need to use different software for different purposes: all the tools used on a daily basis are brought together in a single interface, for a real gain in efficiency.

In addition, customization of the Dashboard (at both a company and an employee level) allows us to provide the most relevant tools, and increase overall user satisfaction.

A real asset at a time when digitalization is forcing us to completely rethink our working methods.

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