As WordPress site owners, we all know how important the WordPress admin dashboard is. Great, but could be even bigger. To improve your workflow, you can customise your WordPress dashboard to make it even more awesome.
For example, you can change the default WordPress dashboard widget with a custom widget. Alternatively, you can personalise your WordPress login page. And the good news is that you can do all of this with a simple WordPress dashboard plugin.
But, why customise the Dashboard?
When using WordPress, the admin dashboard is the most important part of our website. From there, you can do most of your website administration, content creation, etc. For example, you can create new pages, change the theme and manage all website settings.
The WordPress Dashboard is not very complicated by default, but some users may not like the interface. Or you find options and settings in the wrong place (difficult to navigate). Or you simply don’t find the colours appealing.
Do you feel the same way? If so, we recommend customising your WordPress admin dashboard!
Customising your admin dashboard allows you to white label your WordPress dashboard. This means you can fully customise the look and feel of your brand.
Not only can you make your WordPress administration area clearer and more appealing to you and your team by arranging your dashboards where you want them.
Do you also create a website for your customers? Also, your customers may request custom dashboards, so you may need to customise your dashboards.
Luckily in this WordPress Wednesday, you’ll notice there’s 12 plugins that can help you easily make custom dashboards. Let’s check them out!
1. White Label CMS
If you use WordPress to build your client’s website, this plugin allows you to customise your admin panel to suit your client’s needs and desires. Apart from the ability to create a branded login page, it offers 3 preset CMS profiles (website, blog or custom) to modify the menu system.
You can also send custom messages to your customers explaining how to use and navigate the admin panel. If you want to include your developer branding in the admin area, White Label CMS also gives you the option to add your logo to the admin header and footer area.
2. Admin Columns
This plugin allows you to organise your WordPress content administration panel in beautiful columns to make it look organised and user-friendly.Use advanced custom columns to list information specific to that page or post. Also, with this plugin you can filter content and navigate pages.
Using this plugin is ideal for users with large websites or complex product inventories. But you can use it for everything, like assigning priority badges to pages and colour-coding posts.
3. Admin Menu Editor
Admin Menu Editor is a great plugin that every webmaster should have installed. As administrators can personalise the WordPress default menu according to their choices. You can create new custom menus or rearrange the default menus to your liking. This plugin is great in that it improves the usability of the dashboard.
This plugin has a drag-n-drop interface for rearranging menu items in the admin panel. You can also customise your login page and remove WordPress branding from the top bar.
4. Dashboard Widget Suite
The Dashboard Widget Suite is great for working with a large number of new dashboard widgets. It’s free and works on all versions of WordPress with relevant updates. This plugin displays a lot of relevant information about your website, database info, server info, custom notes, social buttons, and server debug logs.
And you have full control over all these widgets. You can decide which ones to show and where to place them on the screen. Overall, the Dashboard Widget Suite is a great plugin for WordPress users who aren’t too concerned with the technical side but still want access to their dashboard on demand.
5. Statify
The Statify WordPress Dashboard plugin is a privacy-friendly plugin. That does not use cookies or third parties. This plugin provides simple and compact access to your website’s view count.
It includes an interactive table followed by a list of the most popular sources and landing pages. The length of the list and the period of the stats can be set directly in the dashboard widget.
6. Admin Management Xtended
Admin Management Xtended uses features known from AJAX-driven CMS such as toggling post/page visibility, changing publish date and title without opening the edit screen or reloading the page. You can also change the page order by drag and drop, inline category management, inline tag management, etc.
7. Post Types Order
With this plugin you can sort posts for any custom post type you’ve defined. Including default posts. You can also view posts within the admin interface sorted with the new sort. Most WordPress users need to reorder their posts. You has two ways of doing this.
This can be done manually by changing the WordPress Order field to a unique number for each post, but it can certainly be a daunting task if you have a lot of posts.
8. Dashboard Columns
The Dashboard Columns plugin allows you to easily change the number of columns in your admin dashboard.
You can also better customise the look of your widgets without sacrificing a responsive interface by choosing your preferred layout from the Screen Options menu. On large screens, there are four columns to choose from. You can choose between 1 or 2 columns on the medium screen, and everything in one column on the small screen.
9. Custom Admin Page
This is a simple plugin that adds unlimited custom WordPress pages to your admin dashboard. With TinyMCE, Gutenberg, WPBakery Page Builder, and Divi Builder, you can add as many pages as you want and customise the look and feel.
The plugin’s default settings include setting a custom page order, adding custom pages to parent pages, selecting custom page icons in the sidebar menu, and more.
10. Better Notifications for WP
Better Notifications for WP is a powerful plugin that lets you customise the email notifications sent by WordPress using a WYSIWYG editor and shortcodes. All default WordPress email notifications are customisable. Notifications can be sent to individual users, multiple users, all users within a user role, or multiple roles. You can also turn on notifications with a premium add-on.
Emails are sent via your WordPress website but it uses wp_mail, but can also be sent via SMTP using the appropriate 3rd party plugins if you prefer.
11. White Label
White Label allows you to customise your WordPress login, admin panel, remove menus, and more. Also, you can add a custom logo, custom login, create a full custom WordPress dashboard with your own widgets and other features to help your customers use WordPress.
You can also add your own informative dashboard widgets to improve customer support with tutorials, FAQs, and instructions easily accessible from your dashboard. You can also add photos and videos.
12. Unlimited Client Dash
Unlimited Client Dash allows you to create custom client dashboards with just a few clicks. This plugin allows you to provide instructions, create custom widgets, hide menu items, and more. You also have the option to create custom client dashboards, manage user features and rename WordPress. Quickly customise footers, login pages, and dashboards.
Also with this plugin, it provides you beautiful themes for your dashboard and you can choose as you like. And easily update your website with code snippets that help manage analytics and pixel tracking.