Overview:
In my opinion the dashboard is relatively useless to most users, currently. I say this because… I know if I want to see all my road calls/site-visits, I click on the schedule; if I want to see all my tickets, I use the ticket button. There is no way to quickly see all in-shop tickets and status.

I want my techs, both the idle road techs and my standard in-shop techs to know what to work on next. Sure I could schedule my in-shop stuff to in-shop guys, but what if one tech calls out, or I schedule three (3) systems and system #1 was a bear and he/she doesn’t get to #2 or #3 with more scheduled tomorrow or the road tech who finished all their calls early and ‘says I don’t know what I should work on, I’m a road tech’. You can imagine other problems too.

I see the dashboard as the answer, taking on the role of the ‘In-Shop Queue”. Showing only what you want, I see it showing just my in-shop tickets, but that’s my need. My ideal allows some customization to make it useful and make it your own. With a quick glance any tech would know which system is the most important to get complete and which is next to look at. Managers can look at the Dashboard and see how ahead or behind the shop is.

The dashboard, currently, may look cool on a 40” flat screen in the shop, but there is too much personal/confidential information displayed along with every ticket I have. Pointless.
My proposed shouldn’t be difficult to implement; the foundation is there and it only requires modification to data output and some tools for the user to customize. If this sounds like a problem you would like to see resolved please vote and bump it….below is the quick version to accomplish the mission, but the link gives a bit more detail through examples. Ask questions, pokes holes or add some input… Thank you

My Suggested Fix, short version (long version is in the link below):

1. Add field when creating ticket to select the status in the new ticket, the field would link to the ‘Ticket Status List’ which is currently editable in ADMIN/Ticket Preferences/Settings

2. Add Dashboard Admin Tool to make customizations

3. In Dashboard tool give the ability to:
   a. Assign designation to each item in the Status List a designation of;
   i. Do Not Show-In-Dash (I would want the designation of ‘In-Shop’ status on a ticket to display on dash)
   ii. Show-In-Dash (I wouldn’t want the designation of ‘Site-Visit’ status on a ticket to display on the dash, because it will be schedule and viewable there)
   iii. Note: All tickets with current filter and sorting can be viewed by the current system by clicking on the ‘Tickets’ button/link

   b. Assign Priority Numbers to only the status Items selected previously as ‘Show-In-Dash’ from the status list (lowest being the most important)
   c. Assign a Color for dashboard box display to each status Item selected previously as ‘Show-In-Dash’ from the status list
   d. Set the Sort Method, up to three sort criteria. This will determine the order in which boxes are displayed in the dashboard;
   i. Priority, Date, Time, Last Name, Business Name, Zip Code etc.
   e. Alerts or Alarms to trigger on events that can be canned and customized such as diagnosed or name of tech working on a system.
   f. Ability to select/customize which information is displayed in each box displayed on the dashboard
   g. Bonus, change view of dashboard.

The link to this document and more…details, examples and more (better formatting too):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pfgjqykih23mk62/AADr3ppbZfoCFosHRuaXYWxqa?dl=0