I disagree with some comments which seem to call for a basic dashboard which can be added to at the discretion of the site owner. That's yesterday's news. People want a fully functional cart from the get-go these days. In short - people expect more than they did years ago. If they want a stripped down, bare bones, eCommerce website to which they have to add multiple add-ons before they get close to what they want then they can use osCommerce.

I agree with Website Robs comments on the previous page with regard to useful widgets.

However I think that the most important thing for a "real business" is to see at a glance if the business (website) is actually making any money for the owner, and if so what the profit margins are. Ideally this should be tied into "Best Sellers", so that site owners can see if what they sell the most of is what makes them the most money.

So I would say that 'admin' would need some added 'product' fields which allow for hidden (admin only) entries for cost price of the item, actual shipping costs as against shipping charged, set against the retail price and shipping charged - the resulting difference being the profit margin on that item. I would recommend that this is incorporated into a "Best Sellers" widget which auto-displays on the dashobard.

It's in everyone's interest here (Zen Cart Team and Certified Hosts) that site owners are successful at the business they set up. Many years experience have shown me that one of the common mistakes is selling some items in high volumes with a very small profit margin when it would be more profitable and involve less work to sell fewer items with higher margins. And site owners often don't factor in the amount of time they spend on running their business, forgetting the axiom that "time is money".

That's my 2c worth anyway.

Vger

@Vger: I think this thread is about the 'Admin Home' page only

The Zen Cart admin will stay 'fully functional', I assume...

@Vger: I think this thread is about the 'Admin Home' page only. The Zen Cart admin will stay 'fully functional', I assume...

Kim, when opening this thread, asked for suggestions for "widgets" which would be displayed on the admin "dashboard" of Zen Cart v2. It's my understanding that this will be a radically different cart to previous versions and have a dashboard displaying widgets of the sort which you get with Magento, Prestashop, Tomato Cart etc.

All Zen Cart versions to date have an admin "landing page", but this isn't a "dashboard" and no "widgets" output data to any dashboard.

Vger

Vger:

All Zen Cart versions to date have an admin "landing page", but this isn't a "dashboard"That is what I thought too, but this part of the post:
We are working on the redesign of the Zen Cart Administration tool and would like you input on the "Dashboard" - The dashboard will be the first thing you see after entering the admin.and replies in this thread made me believe this thread is about the "landing page" only :unsure:

paulm - please take a look at the name of the thread:

Survey for Zen Cart v2.0 Admin Dashboard

Vger

ALL - - -

I agree that there is some confusion and when I asked

kobra:

You did not elaborate about what the structure will be, OOP, some incarnation of a RPG lang, or a light weight inclusion of a Crystal reports type - open source of course....

Where by a user can assemble their own displayed output through code or preferable a menu
There was no response by the dev team as to what the structure might be

At the risk of straying off topic again [looks around nervously for Kim], technically the admin landing page is the login page. What Kim is asking about is the first page that each user sees after they log in. For modern apps this would be an overview or summary and be known as a dashboard.

I don't think there's any suggestion that the admin wouldn't contain a full set of features. More than it has now.

But also greater flexibility, because there isn't a single process that works for all stores. Indeed, every one of our clients has a different order fulfilment process and different reporting requirements. Hence, I suspect, the suggestion that it be widgetized.

To move back towards the topic, current suggestions have tended to be from the store owners perspective. But what I see fairly often, both in the Admin Profiles thread and when people approach us for commercial work is to deliver different information to different people.

So the store owner is interested in financials, but would rather that their warehouse guy sees only orders to be despatched, etc.

Off topic, apologies

For a widget, I would specifically like one that tells me

1. How many debugfiles are in /cache
2. Displays the contents of the latest debug file

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=181798

Personally I want to know whats wrong with the shop rather than gloat or groan over the number of completed, successful orders.
All the sales info is already available with Sales Report and to honest I never have time to look at it.
I only look at the most visited pages to see if we should expand that category of products.

So I would like problem info:
Any debug logs created.
Payment attempts that did not result in a completed order->link to abandoned cart or client.
Products added and subsequently removed from carts
Error/not found pages served and what link or request caused them.
Ability to show orders that have been assigned a particular order status
i.e. pending bank transfers that I have to track, as opposed to completed ccard or Paypal orders that are paid and only require dispatch.

Steve

I know I'm only a beginner in Zencart, but I would like to see;

Customers with Orders
Orders awaiting payment
Orders paid and awaiting shipping
Any stock that is reading 'out of stock'.
Any stock that is 'low on stock'.
If anyone has made a review that needs to be looked at.

I hope that is the type of thing you mean.

Jen

Thanks Jen,
Yes, that's the sort of thing we meant.

It's also useful to include "why" you want to see those things (even if you think it should be obvious to us why, it's good to state why you want to see those things, and what you would do with it if it's there).

Jenvin:

I know I'm only a beginner in ZencartThat's probably an advantage here, as you're thinking like a user relatively untainted by what you know about existing versions of Zen Cart. To get at those perspectives was probably why the question was posted.

Not sure if this has been mentioned or can be done / is a feature of ZC2.

As well as 'Best Customers' i.e. highest spenders. What about 'Most Frequent / Busy Visitor' i.e. customers that spend the most time on the site / logs in the most, not necessarily the biggest spender

Can help
a) See who is regularly on your store, what they view the most.
b) Might give insight as to why they don't buy. Could help the store owner approach said customer to see how they can help / close a sale.
c) help spot registered users who are in fact competitors (lol, I have been caught on a competitors website by always being logged in, looking around but never buying).

Data comparison could be done to show a relationship between the time on site and their spends.

Some great ideas and suggestions coming up!

Q. What information is important to you when you need an overview of your business?

I am reviewing this as a Store Owner not developer (our uses are often quite different)

Firstly, I too agree with Kuroi, allowing the dashboard to be flexible depending on what we have installed or what we need to show would be most ideal.

Additionally, each section to be dynamically placed to best suit the users view and needs i.e. Drag Widget/Section "New Orders" from Right to left or top to bottom. This would allow the store owner to choose what is more popular to their business needs.

My feedback:

1. Suggested dashboard areas to stay:

• NEW ORDERS
• NEW CUSTOMERS
• WEB STATISTICS
• ORDERS

2. Suggestions on enhancing those and adding others:

A. Latest Orders (Last 5)
-- Order No. <-- URL link to read more
-- Customer
-- Total
-- [View All Orders]

B. New Customers (Last 5)
-- Customer <-- URL link to read more
-- Forename/Surname
-- Total
-- [View All Customers]

C. Best Customers (Last 5)
-- Customer <-- URL link to read more
-- Forename/Surname
-- Total
-- [View All Customers]

D. Best Sellers (Last 5)
-- Product <-- URL link to read more
-- Purcahses
-- [View All Products]

E. Orders
Note: Change to "ORDER STATUS" with Pending, Processing etc

F. Widgets/Modules (Last 5)
-- NAME
-- DATE Installed
-- [View All ]

Note: Widget/Modules (not sure what we are calling them) but there should be a section showing the latest added with links to their section within the admin. At present, modules are being installed and it can become difficult to find their location (especially for new users who perhaps didnt do the install themselves).

G. Web Activity Reports

Note: The websites acivity (Orders/visitors) needs to offer more details and be ideally dynamically present to the admin store owner. Two suggests which should be considered:

Dynamic charting using amCharts e.g. http://www.amcharts.com/javascript/chart-with-legend/ and http://www.amcharts.com/javascript/pie-and-column/
Live data from 3rd party widgets such as "Google Analytics API" to present real data.

Also take on board how Magento are offering this (TABBED analytics reports).. Very nice - at magento commerce.com /media/admin/admin-dashboard/view

H. Version: Curently there is a "Check for Updates" this needs to be enhanced e.g.
-- CURRENT VERSION: 1.3.8a (released dd/mm/yy)
-- LATEST VERSION: 1.3.9a (released dd/mm/yy), READ MORE
Note: This I hope will highlight to store owners whether or not they are running the latest version and link them directly to read more on the form.

I. Help/Support
-- Search/Drop Down

Note: Rather than just a link to the Zen-Cart homepage, why not interact with the Tutorials/FAQ section which you kindly prepared. On click on the Help/Support popup an ajax window (frame) allowing the user to search/view all available turotials/faq posts.

• [Reset] Admin Activity Log button. If that is to remain, then on click it should RESET not just take the store owner to a page to ask them to click it again.

J. FINALLY, How about an ADMIN MOST VISITED section. Outlining last five admin sections/pages accessed.! This would be very useful to allow store owners to quickly access regular sections.

=======================

Hope that helps

Forgot to add:

Reading through the posts, it seems that Zen Cart reporting is key, be that no. visitors, their activities, no. sales etc etc... This of course doesn't necessarily mean all of this data should be on the DASHBOARD on login. In fact the DASHBOARD should be a Snap shot of HIGH LEVEL information but allowing the user to click to DRILL down to all available data.

In summary it should be taken on board that the current Zen Cart REPORTING needs to improved ;)

Really - The ZC core team are giving us all a chance to offer our thoughts and I don't see any other Zenners hands going up in the air to outline what they would like - wow.