D.A.S.H. Board

Welcome

Welcome to the D.A.S.H. Board Getting Started Tutorial.

Here you will learn the basics regarding the operation and administration of your D.A.S.H. Board system.

You can use the links on the right to jump ahead if you are looking for specific information, but this guide is laid out in a step by step fashion, and can also be followed much like an instruction sheet.

Overview and Navigation

Upon logging into the administration section of your site, you will see a screen similar to the following. [Your D.A.S.H. Board Name] will of course read as the name of your particular D.A.S.H. Board.

The most important element of this screen is the navigation bar, which you will use to access the various control centers for your D.A.S.H. Board.

As you can see, your options are:

Administration - This will take you back to the original greeting page.

Accountability - This option takes you to the Accountability Partner control center, where you can set up the individuals who will recieve reports from this D.A.S.H. Board system.

Groups - This option will set up groups, which you can devide users into later. Groups allow certain users to only see certain categories.

Users - This area administrates your userbase. You can add new users, delete old users, update users information, such as email addresses, etc., and you can assign users to groups to control which content they can access.

D.A.S.H. Board - This is the core of your system. Here you control the questions, categories, and other information that you need to collect from your userbase.

Site Options - This is a high level maintenance panel where you can change variables such as your D.A.S.H. Board name, and reporting options. This will be setup for you by default, and only needs to be accessed if you need to make a change to the configuration.

Exit Admin - This takes you out of the administrative section and back to your D.A.S.H. Board without logging you out. This effectively lets you easily take a look at your work.

Logout - If you would like to close your session, click log out and you will be instantly logged out of the system. If you want to access the frontend while still logged in, use Exit Admin instead.

Accountability

The Accountability page will list any accountability partners that you have set up. If you do not have any set up, you will have to click add agent, towards the bottom of the page. You can click on the name of an accountability partner in order to edit them. If you need to remove an agent, simply click the delete agent button on the right side of the page, that is in the same line as their name and email address.

The Add and Edit Agent pages are very similar- they each allow you to enter the name and email address of the respective accountability partner. When you are finished just press the Create Agent (or Update Agent) button to save your changes.

The only fields required for Accountability are:

Name: This field is simply used to identify this accountability partner / agent by name.

Email Address: This field determines where related reports are sent, and also provides a means for system administrators to get in contact with an accountability partner / agent if the need arises.

Click the 'Update Agent' button to save your changes- leaving this page without doing so will cause your changes to be discarded (effectively 'canceled'.)

Groups

Groups serve as a way to organize your users into categories- and keep each category out of the other's business. You can assign D.A.S.H. Board categories to only specific groups. You can place Users into groups as well. This page, Groups, is where we create these groups to be used later. You can click the 'Add a new usergroup' button to add a new usergroup. You can click on the name of an existing usergroup in order to edit it. If you need to delete a usergroup, press the Delete Group button on the right side of the page, the one that is inline with the targeted group's name.

Note that the Public group does not have a Delete Group button. The Public group is special- in that if a user registers through the frontend, this is the group they are assigned by default. You can change their group assignment under the Users section. Because Public is integrated into the normal registration system, it is a mandatory category and cannot be deleted. You can rename it, however, if you wish to do so.

The Add Group and Edit Group pages are very similar, they each allow you to enter or edit the desired usergroup name. Then press Add Usergroup or Update Usergroup to save your changes.

The only field on the individual group control page is:

Name: This serves as a visible identifier for this group.

Click 'Update Usergroup' to save your changes. Leaving this panel without doing so will cause your changes to be discarded (effectively 'canceled'.)

Users

On arrival at the user control panel, you will see a list of names. These are your registered users. You can click on their names to edit them, click Add a User to create a new user, or the delete user link that is inline with their name to delete the appropriate user.

Maintaining your users is an integral function of the D.A.S.H. Board system- it allows you to seperate your userbase into groups, each accessing their own content. In addition, you can promote another user to Administrator status if you need the help- please realize that if you promote another user to administrator status, they will have the same level of control as you, including the authority to promote or demote other users to and from administrator status.

The fields on the edit user page are as follows:

Username: This is their login name, that they will type into the login page along with their password in order to log in.

Change Password: Leaving this field as is will leave their password untouched. Changing it will change their password.

Name: This would usually be their actual name- it's primary purpose is to help the administrators and their accountability partners to identify them. It can be a full name, last name, first name, whatever you need it to be (spaces are allowed) depending on your needs.

Administrative Priveledges? Check this box to promote this user to an administrator. Note that at this time there are not multiple levels of administration- promoting another user to administrator level grants them the same rights and authority as yours. If an administrator wishes to retire, or has abused their administrative priveledges, you can simply uncheck the box and they will return to normal user status, and be denied access from administrator functions from that point forward (unless you re-promote them).

Email: This would be the user's email address. Hotlinks are provided for accountability partners in the automated reports that are sent out. The accountability partners can simply click this link to send an email to the user at their email address.

Groups: Here you will have a list of checkboxes that coincides with the Groups control panel. This is where you can assign each user to a specific group, or multiple groups, depending on your specific needs. What groups a user is in determines which categories they can see (access), and the categories in turn determine who these users are reported to. Setting up your groups and assigning your users is the most basic level of using a single D.A.S.H. Board for multiple needs or applications.

Click the 'Update User' button to save your changes- leaving this panel without doing so causes any changes to be discarded (effectively 'canceled'.)

D.A.S.H. Board

Upon arriving at the D.A.S.H. Board control panel, you will be greeted with a list of categories.

You can click on a category's name to edit it, or click 'Add Category' to create a new one. Categories are set up for groups of questions. Each category can be set up for a different set of user groups, as well as different accountability partners to send reports to.

This control center varies from the other in that it is hierarchial. Click on a category name to be presented with the edit controls for that category, as well as the control center for questions contained by that category.

This is the most complex control panel of the D.A.S.H. Board system, so we'll break it down into two parts (categories and questions) and cover them seperately.

Categories

When you first click on D.A.S.H. Board from the navigation bar, you will be presented with a list of categories. You can edit a category by clicking on its name. You can add a new category by clicking on the 'Add Category' link at the bottom of the page. You can delete a category by clicking on the 'Remove Category' link on the right side of the page, inline with the name of the category you wish to remove.

While adding or editing a category, you will see the following fields:

Category Name: This will be the identifying name of this category. This will appear in the category list both in administration and on the frontend of your D.A.S.H. Board, as well as being used to identify the category in the automated reports. For convenience and costmetic purposes, it is recommended that you keep the actual category name relatively simple (to a few words, if possible). This category name will also be the clickable link to access this category both in administration as well as on the frontend.

Category Description: This will be visible in the category list both in the frontend of your D.A.S.H. Board as well as in the administrative section. It is intended to provide clarification of the purpose / intent of this category's questions. The description field will appear in smaller print than the category name, and therefore will look relatively good even with a longer amount of text present- in other words, the full description of this category should go here.

Usergroups: This field offers you a set of checkboxes, one for each group you currently have established under the Groups control center. If you need to add or edit a group, you would access Groups from the navigation bar to do so; don't forget to save your changes here before you do (if you need to). Selecting groups allows only users who are a member of these groups to see or "fill out" this category. Users that are not members of the selected will not be made aware that this category even exists. The public group defaults to being checked- you can uncheck this group to disallow public access. If your D.A.S.H. Board allows public registration, newly registered users will be automatically set as members of the public group until and unless an administrator changes their group settings under the Users control center.

Agent(s): Here you will be presented with a list of all the accountability partners / agents you have set up under the Accountability control center. This is effectively selecting which of these will recieve automated reports. You can select one, or several, depending on your needs.

Is this a scheduled category? This checkbox allows you to specify whether or not you would like to place a time restriction on this category. It enables the following two fields, which have no effect if this option is not enabled.

Deadline (MM/DD/YYYY): In order to use this option, you must have enabled this category to be scheduled by checking the box in the previous field. Once the deadline has passed, users will not be able to submit/change answers for this category. Enter the date as an eight digit number, in the format listed above (MM/DD/YYYY), but leave out the /'s.

Notify Time, in Days: This option is related to the previous two, and has no effect if the category is not set to scheduled (or does not have an actual deadline set in the previous option). This causes the category to be highlighted within this many days of the deadline. For example, if we set this value to 3, and the deadline is in 4 days, everything will appear to be normal; once we were to reach the 3 days before the deadline mark, the category would become highlighted in the list.

Weight: This option only affects scoring. Some categories may be more important than others, while others may not be important to the score at all, but rather simly attempting to gather information. You have the options to have this category not scored, scored normally, or to make it count double or triple towards the user's (and the entire system's) overall status.

Click 'Save Changes' to save your changes- leaving this page without doing so will cause any changes you have made to be discarded (effectively 'canceled'.)

Questions

While editing a category, the questions contained in that category will be listed below it. You can click on the name of a question to edit it, or click the 'Add a Question' link below the list to add a new question to the category. You can remove a question by clicking 'Delete Question' on the right side of this list, underneath the description for the question that you intend to delete.

While adding or editing a question, you will always have the following fields:

Question Name: This is the visible name of this question, and the text used for the clickable link to access this question, both on the frontend of your D.A.S.H. Board, as well as in the adminsitrative areas. For convenience and cosmetic purposes, it is recommended that you keep the question name relatively simple (keeping it to just to just a few words makes for a nice, clean display.)

Question Description: This field will be visible right below the question name on the frontend of the D.A.S.H. Board system as well as in administrative areas. It is displayed using a smaller text size, and can accomodate a larger amount of text than the question name. It is recommended that you utilize this area to specifically ask the complete question, and use the Question Name field more for a simple idenfication purpose.

Type: This is the most important field to a question- it determines what type of question this will be, and shows or hides the other fields needed to provide the complete data for the question and scoring mechanisms. The system currently supports six different types of questions, and each one will cause a unique set of new fields to appear, depending on what information is needed for the system to operate that question as you intend. I will explain each question type, along with their associated fields, seperately:

• Numeric : :

  Numeric questions are a way to guage a response numerically, such as questions like "on a scale from 1 to 10". They are also very simple to set up. Specify a minimum value (would be 1 in the example), a maximum value (would be 10 in the example), and a desirable value. If, in that example, 10 were to be the "good" choice (such as 10 stars), your desirable value would be 10. If 10 were the worst choice (such as 10th place), your desirable value would be 1.

  

  Minimum Value:

  This is where the available options will begin. The system will generate a selectable "answer" for every number between this and the maximum value (must be no more than 100 numbers between them).

  Maximum Value:

  This is the point where the system stops generating selectable answers (must be no more than 100 numbers higher than the minimum value).

  Desireable Value:

  This should be set to the most desirable value. It can be at the minimum value, the maximum value, or anywhere in between. The system will score you based on your distance from this value, in either direction.

• True or False : :

  True or false questions are relatively simple; just ask your question in the question name/description, and select whether the desirable choice would be true or false.

  

  Desirable Choice:

  This determines which answer to this question (out of true or false) will be scored as the preferable answer. Selecting "true" means users who select "true" as their answer will be scored in the good, while users who select "false" will have a red light score as a result. Likewise, selecting false as the desirable choice means that users who select "true" will be scored in the red, while users who choose "false" as their answer will be green-lighted.

• Yes or No : :

  Yes or no questions operate almost identically to the True or False questions, described in the previous option. In fact, the only difference between the two is the terminology used to represent the available answers. True or False questions will use the terms "true" and "false", whereas yes or no questions will use "yes" or "no", respectively. The only additional field for yes or no questions, is, like the case with True or False, selecting which would be the Desirable Choice.

  

  Desirable Choice:

  This determines which answer to this question will be scored good, or "green light", and which answer is not good, or "red light". Selecting "Yes" as your desirable choice means that users who select Yes as their answer will recieve a good, "green light" score, while users who select "No" as their answer will be given a "red light" score. Likewise, selecting "No" as the desirable answer does effectively the opposite- makes "No" reward users a positive score, while "Yes" would leave them "in the red."

• Multiple Choice : :

  Multiple choice and multiple answer questions are the most complex type of question you can create- however they are also the most powerful. They both work similarly, the difference being that multiple choice only allows a single answer, while multiple answer allows as many answers as the user chooses to select.

  Answer Captions and Efficiences both use comma seperated values. For example, "1, 2, 3" is a comma seperated list. You can use a single space as well, or just the comma- this will not make a difference.

  

  Number of Answers:

  Type a number in this field to set how many answers you are adding, in total. If your question should have 3 different answers, you would type 3 here.

  Answer Captions:

  This is a comma seperated value, and needs to have the same number of values as the Number of Answers you specified above. For example, if your question should have these three answers: No, Maybe, and Yes, you would type: No,Maybe,Yes . The order you enter these "captions" in is the order they will appear in the question's display. Do not add a comma after the final value (for example, this is incorrect: No,Maybe,Yes, ).

  Efficiencies:

  This is a comma seperated value, and needs to have the same number of values as the Number of Answers you have specified above. This value effectively determines the "score" of each option, in the same order as your captions. These values need to be a value between 0 and 100, and will directly result in assigning the user this score, based on their selected answer. To continue the "No, Maybe, Yes" example used above, if you wanted the value of No to be 0, Maybe to be 50, and Yes to be 100, you would enter "0,50,100" in this field (without the quotes). The values represent, in order, the value for each caption. Because "No" is the first caption, and "0" is the first efficiency (a.k.a. "score"), "No" is worth "0" points; likewise for Maybe being worth 50, both being the second value, and Yes being worth 100, because they are both the third value in the lists. Do not add a comma after the final value (for example, this is incorrect: 0,50,100, ).

• Multiple Answer : :

  Multiple choice and multiple answer questions are the most complex type of question you can create- however they are also the most powerful. They both work similarly, the difference being that multiple choice only allows a single answer, while multiple answer allows as many answers as the user chooses to select.Answer Captions and Efficiences both use comma seperated values. For example, "1, 2, 3" is a comma seperated list. You can use a single space as well, or just the comma- this will not make a difference.

  

  Number of Answers:

  Type a number in this field to set how many answers you are adding, in total. If your question should have 3 different answers, you would type 3 here.

  Answer Captions:

  This is a comma seperated value, and needs to have the same number of values as the Number of Answers you specified above. For example, if your question should have these three answers: No, Maybe, and Yes, you would type: No,Maybe,Yes . The order you enter these "captions" in is the order they will appear in the question's display. Do not add a comma after the final value (for example, this is incorrect: No,Maybe,Yes, ).

  Efficiencies:

  This is a comma seperated value, and needs to have the same number of values as the Number of Answers you have specified above. This value effectively determines the "score" of each option, in the same order as your captions. To continue the "No, Maybe, Yes" example used above, if you wanted the value of No to be 0, Maybe to be 50, and Yes to be 100, you would enter "0,50,100" in this field (without the quotes). The values represent, in order, the value for each caption. Because "No" is the first caption, and "0" is the first efficiency (a.k.a. "score"), "No" is worth "0" points; likewise for Maybe being worth 50, both being the second value, and Yes being worth 100, because they are both the third value in the lists. Do not add a comma after the final value (for example, this is incorrect: 0,50,100, ).

  For Multiple Answer questions, the user's score will be the total of the efficiencies for the answers the user has selected. For example, if you have 4 answers worth 25 points each, and the user selects 3 of them, the user will have scored 75% for this question.

  Another option that Multiple Answers provides is the ability to use a negative efficiency. For example, you could have three questions worth 25 each, and one question worth '-25', which would deduct 25 points from the users score for this question. So in this example, if the user selected all four questions, their score would be 25 + 25 + 25 - 25 = 50. However, the total score will not drop below 0% or rise above 100% (it will be limited to these values).

• Text Input Area : :

  Text Input Area questions are not scored, nor do they need any additional information to set up. This will create an area where the user may freely enter an answer in their own words. This question type is solely for the purpose of collecting information, which will be provided in the automated reports, and does not affect the user or the category status in any way.

Is this critical to the deadline? Checking this box will cause this question to be highlighted in the list once the category's "notify period" begins. It is only a visual effect, it will not affect score or handling of the question in any way.

Weight: The last field on the add/edit questions page is Weight. Similar to a category's weight, this determines how a question will be scored within its category. Some questions are more important than others, while other questions may be for additional information, etc, and not important at all. You can choose to have this question scored normally, not scored at all, or scored double or triple. This affects the category's overall score, as well as the user's overall score.

While editing an existing question, you will be able to see the question at the top of the page, and be able to test the scoring of this question. This testing 'sandbox' area will also provide scoring-related information so that you can verify the question is being scored how you intended. This sandbox area is updated when you save changes, so in order to test changes you have made to the question, you will have to click save changes and return to the question.

Click 'Save Changes' to save your changes- leaving this page without doing so will cause any changes to be discarded (effectively 'canceled'.)

Reports

Automated reports are scheduled to be sent every night, at 12:05am.

If your specific use of the D.A.S.H. Board requires a different schedule, contact one of our representatives and we may be able to adjust this for you. There is no way to schedule reports more than once per day.

One report is created for each category, and a copy of this report is emailed to the accountability partners assigned to this category. To control who recieves these reports, set up your accountability partners / agents as needed under the administrative "Accountability" control panel, and then assign these accountability partners to the categories they should recieve reports from in the D.A.S.H. Board control center, under the category settings. See the respective parts of this guide for more details on this process.

The reports provide a lot of useful information related to their respective categories, and the users assigned to that category's groups. We will go over and discuss this information in sections:

The Header:

The header contains the name of your D.A.S.H. Board. This is a hyperlink which you can click to visit your D.A.S.H. Board. It also displays the name of the category that is being reports. Just below this you will find the date that this report was sent (keep in mind that these reports are sent just after midnight, at the beginning of the new day).

The Overview Report:

Below the header we have an overview report (usually displays with blue trims). This "overview report" contains information relating to the overall status of this category. This section is split into two columns.

The left column has two subsections, Overview and Exclusions.

Overview contains quick, at a glance type of statistics. It will show the number of users who have access to this category, along with the category's overall status, and the difference (if any) this status bears from the previous report. For example, if your status was at 68% yesterday, and today it's at 72%, the difference would be 4%.

Exclusions display a list of users who were not active since the last report was sent. Because there were not active, their information remains the same as it was in the previous report. By "excluding" them, it prevents these reports from containing too much bulk data, keeping them to the current information that you need without being bloated with outdated, unchanging, repetetive content. In the list of exclusions, you will see the excluded users' username, actual name, over status, date of last activity, and email address. The email address acts as a hyperlink, for your convenience, which you can click on to write them an email. If your workstation is not set up to handle mailto hyperlinks, you will have to copy it down and email them manually.

If a user is no longer a part of your D.A.S.H. Board program, you should delete them from the Users control panel in administration- this will remove their data from the system as well as from the reports, and will keep them from showing up as an "exclusion" for an indefinite amount of time.

In the right column, you will see a list of all the questions, and their respective answers. Next to each answer is a percentage. This percentage indicates the percentage of all users (including excluded users) selected this answer. The color of the percentage indicates the score related to this answer (red means this answer would bear a low "stop" score, yellow means that it would bear a medium "caution" score, and green indicated that it yeilds an acceptable "keep going" score.)

The User Reports:

Following the Overview Report, you will find reports for all active users (trimmed in black). The users that were not active since the last time a report were sent have been excluded to reduce bulk bloat (see Exclusions in the Overview Report for more information). Users that are active will be reported here, allowing you to review a few statistical, at a glance details, along with their individual answer selections for this category. If no users have been active since the last report was sent, you will simply recieve an overview report, as there will be no user activity to report.

The user reports are also split into two columns.

The left column has two subsections, user details and at-a-glance statistics.

User details are captioned by the user's Name, and displays the user's username and email address below it. The email address is hyperlinked for your convenience- meaning that on most systems you can click the email address to begin composing an email addressed to it. If your workstation does not support mailto links, you can copy down the address and contact them manually.

The At A Glance statistics for each user provide a quick reference for the user's overall status, the variation (difference) from the status at the time the last report was sent, and the date of their last activity.

Down the right side of the user reports you will see a list of questions from this category, and this user's answer to these questions. To the left of the answer is a "light", either red, yellow, or green. This light indicates the score they were assigned for this answer, with a "green light" indicating the answer is of acceptable standards, a "yellow light" indicating a "cautionary" answer that likely needs attention, and a "red light" indicating a problematic answer that likely needs to be addressed. Note that text input fields do not bear a score, and will appear "unlit" (black).

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I setup another administrator account?

In order to create another account with administrative priveledges, first create or register a new user. Then, in the Users control panel, click on this user's name in order to access the Edit User control. From here, check the box next to 'Administrative Priveledges', and press the 'Update User' button to save your changes. Your new account will have administrative priveldges.

How can I help a user change their password?

An administrator can change a user's password by heading over to the Users control center, clicking on the subject's username to edit their account information, change the password, and press Update User to save your changes.

How can I create a leadership or management only (restricted) category?

In order to restrict a category to a specific set of users, such as leadership or management, first head over to the Groups control center, and add a new usergroup. Name your group (you could name it management, or leadership, or anything else you choose). Press Add / Update Usergroup to save your changes.

Head over to the Users control center, and click on the name of a user that is a member of your leadership/management/restricted access group. On the edit user page, you will see an option to assign the user to groups. Ensure that the user is assigned to your newly created group (it's entirely up to you if you want to leave their access to public or other groups), and press Update User to save your changes.

From here, head to the D.A.S.H. Board control center. Either create your management / leadership category by clicking on 'Add a new category', or if you have already created it, click on its name in the list to edit it.

On the add/edit category page, head down to the 'Groups' option, and select your management / leadership group in the list by checking the box next to it. In order to restrict the category to only this group, ensure that no other boxes are checked in the Groups list.