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Dashboard

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Module: Phonebook · URL: /phonebook/dashboard · Responsible role: General Affairs / Admin · Also used by: Owner/Director (full); Project Manager, Event Officer, Procurement (write); all other staff (read)

Dashboard — Phonebook overview: stat cards (28 contacts, 13 organizations, 10 tags, 0 favorites), five recent volunteer contacts, one upcoming reminder, contacts by organization and quick actions

Screenshot: Lisa Porter (Operations Officer), Nocthink Demo Institute demo data.

Why I use this page

I keep the institute's address book tidy, and this dashboard is my health check on it. Each morning I glance at the pending follow-up reminders, check who was added recently (so I can complete missing positions and companies), and see which partner organizations we actually have people at. The quick actions take me straight to the page where I add a contact, organization, reminder or note.

What's on the screen

  • Header — title Phonebook, description and an orange + (labelled "Go to contacts") that opens Contacts.
  • Stat cards (each card links to its page):
    • Total contacts — contacts I can see, with "N pending reminders" ("1 pending reminder" for one).
    • Organizations — all organization and donor records, with "N with contacts".
    • Groups & tags — number of distinct tags in use (top 10).
    • Favorites — contacts I have hearted, with "N% of contacts".
  • Recent contacts (Latest added) — the five newest contacts with initials, name and position; a lock icon marks a private contact. Each row has a … menu with Remove. View all opens Contacts.
  • Upcoming reminders (N pending) — up to five pending reminders: contact name, note and date. View all opens the reminders list (/phonebook/reminders).
  • By organization — up to ten organizations ranked by how many contacts are linked to them, with a bar and count. View all opens Organizations.
  • Quick actions — Add contact, Add organization, Set reminder, Add note.

How I …

How I work through my follow-ups

  1. Read Upcoming reminders — each line shows who, what and when (e.g. "Emily Carter — Send interim report summary — Oct 30").
  2. Click View all to open the reminders list, where I can add a reminder (Add reminder: Contact, Note, Remind at) or act on existing ones.
  3. To add a reminder from a person's record, open them in Contacts and use the Reminders section of the contact drawer.

How I complete newly added contacts

  1. In Recent contacts, note entries with no position.
  2. Click View all, find the contact and use … → Edit to fill in the details.

How I add something quickly

  1. Under Quick actions, click Add contact or Add organization — I land on that list; then click its orange +.
  2. Set reminder opens the reminders list; Add note opens Notes (/notes).

How I remove a stray contact

  1. In Recent contacts, click the row's … menu → Remove.
  2. Confirm "Remove <name>?". The contact is deleted from the phonebook (not just hidden from the dashboard).

Access & permissions

  • The menu needs phonebook.view, which every staff member gets via the Staff baseline role (docs/role.md §4.2: R for Staff; W for Project Manager, Event Officer, General Affairs and Procurement; F for Owner/Director).
  • Adding, editing and deleting require phonebook.create, phonebook.update and phonebook.delete; read-only staff see the buttons but the API refuses the change.

Caveats

  • Private contacts created by someone else are not counted or listed — the API only shows public contacts plus my own private ones. Two colleagues can therefore see different totals.
  • Favorites are personal: they count only the contacts I hearted.
  • Organizations counts donor records too (in the demo, 13 = 5 organizations + 8 donors), while the Organizations list shows organizations only.
  • Groups & tags is capped at the top 10 tags, so it never shows more than 10.
  • Remove from Recent contacts is a permanent delete after a browser confirm.

Limitations

  • No date filters or trend charts.
  • The quick actions only navigate; none of them opens a create dialog directly.
  • The tags, favorites and reminders pages (/phonebook/tags, /phonebook/favorites, /phonebook/reminders) are not in the sidebar; reach them from the stat cards and View all links here.
  • Contacts — the people behind the counts; notes, reminders and activity per contact.
  • Organizations — partner institutions; source of By organization.
  • Donors — funder records (included in the Organizations count).
  • All Events — contacts can be invited to events from Contacts.