EN Dashboard Do Over Project 👷

Coach Patrick · March 22, 2019 2:59PM

@John Stark @Janyne Kizer @Rory Gumina And ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO PLAY ALONG! @Clark Mitchell , etc.

💥 Time to go to town on the Dashboard!!!! 💥

Current Dashboard here

Set Goals for the the Dashboard Process

Find examples
Outline resources
Create action plan
Execute!

The point of the "dashboard" is meant to be a central hub for things Endurance Nation. In the discussion for forum updates, we talked about options from "making the forum homepage be the dashboard" to creating a new "simple/cleaner" page that is our landing page. Or perhaps it's a "personal page" that has their threads, stats, whatever. This is where it gets exciting.

Just some food for thought...Endurance Nation is composed of a few elements that are distributed:

Training Plans: Live on Final Surge
Forum: Lives in cloud on Vanilla
Chat: Lives in GroupMe
Learning Content: Lives inside DNN / Members site.
Billing / Member Roles: Lives inside DNN / Members site

I think our next best option is to set up a call to connect. Here's a doodle poll for those of you interested: https://doodle.com/poll/y8n4ibfgb48swpc5

Thanks in advance!

~ Coach P

John Stark · March 22, 2019 3:12PM

In.

I am at the EN Moab Camp and will chat with the cool kids here and get some collective input. More soon.

Janyne Kizer · March 22, 2019 4:08PM

I'm traveling next week so I have limited availability. I'll Doodle but definitely feel free to meet without me.

Clark Mitchell · March 24, 2019 11:20AM

@Coach Patrick I picked times in the doodle.

Clark

John Stark · March 25, 2019 3:35AM

You’ve been Doodled.

Coach Patrick · March 25, 2019 8:49PM

Okay kids!!! Looks like Sunday March 31st is the first best time that 5/6 of us can connect!

Here is the details, please put it on your calendars!!!

In the meantime, if you have any sites / places we should look, please post them or be ready to speak on them when we start!

Topic: EN Dashboard Do Over

Time: Mar 31, 2019 8:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/2572877525

One tap mobile

+16465588656,,2572877525# US (New York)

+16699006833,,2572877525# US (San Jose)

Janyne Kizer · April 1, 2019 1:08AM

Oh my gosh! I completely forgot about the meeting tonight! I am so sorry!

Rory Gumina · April 1, 2019 11:47AM

Sorry @Coach Patrick and Team ... I didn't see this till now ... #doodleloser

Rory Gumina · April 1, 2019 12:17PM

Rory's EN Dashboard (DB) Comments:

DB included in Forum (Home?) ... or easily linked back/forth ... makes Forum 1-stop-shopping
^^^ could eliminate need for Most Recent Forum Posts section
DB include Latest Activities from Final Surge in addition to, or instead of, Strava
Team Feed mirrored both ways with a new Group Me Chat
Love how "clean" the current DB looks ... Announcements, Birthdays, Content Updates & Pictures are all value-adding
Links to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? ... I have none of these (social misfit!) so am just guessing here, but seems like where current & future target Team EN'ers will be

John Stark · April 1, 2019 3:21PM

P and I had a good chat. Not sure I added much value but he will be posting a mock up of what it may look like and have folks comment on it. More soon.

Janyne Kizer · April 1, 2019 3:24PM

Thanks @John Stark and @Coach Patrick !

Coach Patrick · April 4, 2019 3:20PM

Call Notes: Patrick & @John Stark On 03/31/2019

Finally done...sorry this took so long peeps...

Dashboard Roles:

To be simple and easy to use (make new members feel at home)
To be a source of timely and relevant information (current members)

Basic Recommendations

Dashboard Area:

Keep "New Member Widgets" at top of the Dashboard page (Veteran members can't see them), make sure they are up to date with desired membership flow. Keep it simple and make it a visual companion for their on boarding call / experience. ✅
Eliminate the Strava and Instagram stuff...Temporarily reduced to just Strava leaderboard?...they are just redundant for folks on either platform. ✅
Eliminate Bdays...folks don't use it. ✅

In Forums:

Add a New Members Here space in the forums that is pinned and easy to find. ❓
Plan for timely info in the forums. Pin race threads, camp threads, etc...into the Announcement Forumso folks can find at the top. (can you pin older threads to announcements board?). Or should we have a This Week section? ❓
Add navigation bar for the website to the forum? ❓

Main Recommendations

Make dashboard a desired location by combining timely coach / team content with forum updates.
Split top of page into two columns.
Left column has Weekly Message / Video / Theme from Coach Patrick. ✅
Right column has the Recent Forum Threads. ✅
Add a "Go to Forums" Button? ❓
Below that section should be "tiles" of relevant articles and resources...what's important in March? April? May? ❓
Where to put the GroupMe info? Can't be live...so on right under forums with a Featured GroupMe? Or Keep it in the middle section? ❓

You can see this on the Demo Dashboard page here: http://members.endurancenation.us/Community/DashboardDemo.aspx

Feedback? Thoughts?

What did we get right?

What did we get wrong and should we consider?

Janyne Kizer · April 4, 2019 3:45PM

Add navigation bar for the website (/members.endurancenation.us) to the forum (endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com)?

Yes please. If I am in the forums and want to look at the wiki, I need to go back to the members page to find it. So if we could have at least some of the website menu bar -- at least Learning -- in the forums, that would be awesome.

I know this is a big ask but... Is there any way that search could encompass both sites?

There are some GroupMe widgets available. I'm not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV. I don't know if they would work for EN or not: https://www.co-funded.com/www.groupme.com/page/widgets

Rory Gumina · April 5, 2019 12:43PM

Like the new DB look
Where will current members see New Members that join, and be able to Welcome them? ... special New Members Group Me chat maybe?
I do like automatic feed of Teammates activities (eg. Strava) because it gives me another opportunity to celebrate and support their efforts ... though if it can't be from Final Surge (eg. EN official wko platform) then agree not worth it
Agree, ability/button to go to Forums would be great

Janyne Kizer · April 5, 2019 12:46PM

https://endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/comment/274680#Comment_274680

Good question about new members. New members forum thread? Maybe divide by month or year so it's not a neverending thread (or maybe we do want it to be a neverending thread, who knows?)

Francis Picard · April 5, 2019 2:17PM

i like it

Coach Patrick · April 6, 2019 1:24AM

Compiling Thoughts Here...

Voted Up:

Yes to Members Site Navigation on the Forum....I am working on what that would look like.
New Members Will be Welcomed in the Forums here: The One And Only New Member Welcome Thread - NOTE: It won't be automatic though, they will have to post here.
Social Feed of Workouts is possible on Final Surge. You can see it here: https://log.finalsurge.com/socialwall/ I could potentially work to have it be a "Default" start page on Final Surge....or perhaps to modify their HTML for us to update that page? This would require a FS account and login to access, so not available to members "out of the gate" when they join...not an issue just noting it.
Adding a Got to Forums button...done! ✅

Not Possible:

GroupMe embed ( @Janyne Kizer Those examples themselves are broken....believe me I have looked).
Search to span Discussions (Forums) and Content (Members Site)...Also not possible. I think if you space out the thought process, it would make sense. If you want to find an article...it's on the site. If you want to find a discussion or user created resource (race report) then it's in Le Forums.

What do you think about that Final Surge social wall?

~ Coach P

Rory Gumina · April 9, 2019 11:37AM

FS Social Wall seems similar to Forums and GroupMe ... gives us yet another place to interact ... which seems redundant and dilutive to me.

I originally thought automatically sharing latest FS completed wko's to the Dashboard would be better than the former Strava feed ... but re-thinking ... prob best to let us share wko's when & where we want to ...

Janyne Kizer · April 9, 2019 11:53AM

@Rory Gumina I think that either FS or Strava feed is good. @Coach Patrick , do you mean that the actual Janyne did a 1 hour run, Rory did a super fast swim would be in the FS feed or just Janyne posting a picture of her running shoes and Rory posting a photo of tropical paradise? Right now the FS feed is mostly instagram-like.

@Coach Patrick Thanks for adding the nav to the forums page. The members welcome thread sounds good.

~~Regarding search, I'll mess with Google Custom Search a bit and see what I can come up with (https://cse.google.com/) -~~- nothing to see here. probably because it password protected. it was worth a shot!

Coach Patrick · April 9, 2019 5:30PM

The FS feed is your workout, as captured in FS, that you can "share out" kind of like the strava feed.I think it's important to remember that some of the folks on the Team don't use the GroupMe chats, so this could be a place to be social that "fits" for some folks. But I don't know about adding our own content around it....

Coach Patrick · April 10, 2019 2:35PM

@Janyne Kizer @Rory Gumina @Al Truscott @Francis Picard

New naVigation available on the desktop....need to work on mobile. What do you think?

Screen Shot 2019-04-10 at 10.12.43 AM.png

Janyne Kizer · April 10, 2019 2:52PM

Overall, I really like it! It's very straightforward and it's easy to find stuff. 👍️

Is the wiki still a thing or is that going away?

Rory Gumina · April 10, 2019 6:19PM

Looks good! ... Two questions:

I probably should know this, but is there relevance to the grouping of links in the Blue Banner vs the Red Banner? ... or is it just that Red Banner links are Legacy, and Blue is the new hierarchy (which ROCKS btw!)
Why do I have to log in again when I call the Dashboard?

Rory Gumina · April 10, 2019 6:20PM

*click not call the Dashboard

Janyne Kizer · April 10, 2019 7:18PM

https://endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/comment/274800#Comment_274800

I think that the red menu is the Vanilla Communities menu and the blue one an menu for all things Team EN.

The login thing is probably because you are switching between domains (vanillacommunities.com/endurancenation.us). Maybe a "keep folks logged on for 18 hours" sort of thing could be implemented so that people only have to authenticate once per sleep?

Francis Picard · April 11, 2019 12:22AM

great idea that banner, no need to change tab etc

scott dinhofer · April 11, 2019 10:21AM

Love the new navigation!!!

haven't poked around on it.. I did notice that clicking the EN logo used to bring me to the dashboard, now i have to find it in a drop down on the blue bar...

Coach Patrick · April 11, 2019 11:56AM

I’ll check the link to the Members site and yes, @scott dinhofer good call on making dashboard more prominent....likely first link.

~ Coach P

Coach Patrick · April 11, 2019 4:57PM

Okay, added The Dashboard to the blue nav so it's there...and @Rory Gumina you should Be able to click over there now no issues! 👍

Rory Gumina · April 12, 2019 12:53PM

Love the prominence of the Dashboard link! And yes no problem clicking over now ... nice @Coach Patrick !

Alicia Chase · April 14, 2019 11:11AM

I LOVE the Dashboard link! I know it’s silly, but having to open two pages to access all content was sometimes a (laziness) roadblock for me. This is great!