The Action-Packed 17hats Dashboard

Productive and efficient – those are two things that all business owners strive to be.

But when running your business, there are dozens of items that require our attention every day: appointments, emails, client work, and invoicing, to name just a few. It’s a lot to keep track of!

Enter the 17hats Dashboard. More than just an at-a-glance view, the 17hats Dashboard is designed as a workspace. You can complete tasks, communicate with clients, and schedule your time, all from one location.

Below are five ways you can take action without leaving the 17hats Dashboard at all. Maximum productivity, here we come!

Add a Calendar event

Managing your time while running a business is one of the most important things you can do to stay organized. That’s why the 17hats Dashboard shows you a 5-Day Quick View at the very top of the page. Even better, you can manage your next five days directly from your Dashboard view – no need to navigate away to your Calendar simply to add an event!

Simply click on a day in the 5-Day Quick View, and an Event window will pop open. You can:

• Add a title and description for your event
• Choose the time of your event (the date will be pre-populated)
• Select the Calendar you want to use for your event
• Associate the event with a Project
• Even trigger a Workflow

Managing your next five days is a snap!

Send an Invoice Reminder

Following up with clients about their Invoices is never any business owner’s favorite task. So make it easy on yourself: Create an Invoice Reminder emails template (or customize the one provided by 17hats) that uses tokens to personalize the email for each client.

When an Invoice becomes Past Due (and if you don’t have Automatic Reminders turned on), simply open the Past Due Invoices drop-down menu on your Dashboard and hover over the Invoice that needs a reminder. Next, click the “Remind” button, and your previously created Reminder Template will appear as an option. Select your template, click the send button, and – voilà – see your Past Due Invoice count reduced by one.

Work through your Workflows

Consistently working on (and completing) your Workflows is a great way to ensure that you’re delivering the best possible client experience. Once you have created your Workflow templates, 17hats will tee up Workflow steps directly on your Dashboard. But more than just providing you with a list of what’s coming up next, you can complete Workflow steps right from your Dashboard – no clicking away from this view just to start your day!

Click open the Workflow drop-down and hover over the step you would like to complete. Each step will have different options under the “Actions” tab depending on the goal of the step. For example, if a step wants to archive a Project, that will be an action item. Or, naturally, in the “Send a Contract” step, the Document will be available to send.

If you’d like to review the Workflow or view the Project before taking action, those options will be listed as well. So start your day by making progress on all of your active Workflows right from your Dashboard. This will keep you firmly in the driver’s seat of your service delivery.

Work through your To-Do List

Your To-Do list plays a crucial role in keeping you organized as a business owner. Sizing up a list of the tasks you need to accomplish each day will allow you to budget your time and ensure that you’re focusing on your clients’ experience.

The To-Do dropdown on the 17hats Dashboard gathers all of your tasks in one place. You can open the drop-down and work through your to-dos until your list is complete, checking off every task as you go.

But what if you need to postpone a to-do? That’s easy! Hover over the task that needs to be pushed back and click “snooze” – a menu will open that allows you to choose when the task should come due next.

Need to make more adjustments to the task? Maybe add some additional detail, create reminder notes, or add a specific time for the task? That’s easily accomplished right from the Dashboard as well: Click on the task description, and a window will pop open. Make your adjustments, click save, and keep working through your to-do list.

Reply to Emails from your Contacts

Do you let your email inbox control your day?

Here’s one way to tell: Do you keep your email open constantly and respond as emails arrive? Or do you dedicate time within your day to responding to emails?

The latter method is recommended, so you can retain your focus and preserve your productivity. And it isn’t just client emails that drain our time! Those newsletters, responding to a coworker, the latest alert from social media – those can all steal our attention, or even worse, become rabbit holes of procrastination.

But as frustrating as the volume of email can be, it remains a necessary part of running a business. With Levels Two and Three of 17hats, you can connect your Incoming Email to your 17hats account. That will allow you to see emails from your 17hats Contacts right on your Dashboard. It’s like having a prioritized inbox right within your to-do list. Gone are the social media alerts and sales emails, leaving just the important emails from your Leads and Clients.

You can even respond to emails right from your Dashboard. Click on the email’s subject line, then click the “Reply” button in the top right corner.

Or maybe you’re in the middle of a Project and today isn’t the best day to respond. So snooze that email until tomorrow and be reminded again later. Remember, you’re in control of your schedule.

What if you are working late when an email hits your inbox? We all know it happens; running a business isn’t always a 9-to-5 job. But we don’t want to train our clients to assume that we might be working late into the evening. Instead, you can respond to the email while you’re working in your pajamas before bed, but save your response as a draft and then hit “send” in the morning! It gets something off your to-do list, but doesn’t let your clients think you’re available whenever they want.

The 17hats Dashboard is more than just a list of the things you need to accomplish when you start your day. It is an actual workspace to increase your productivity and efficiency as you start each morning!