As the end of another year approaches, you may be counting down to the start of the festive period (or maybe even dreading it). This time of year can go one of two ways, either you’re very busy finishing up before January, or your team begins to wind down and get into the holiday spirit.

Either way, this can cause a shift in the way your team is working. In this case, we’re specifically referring to the engagement with key metrics.

If your team is extremely busy, they could be so involved in the task at hand that they might overlook their usual daily reporting.

If you’re one of those teams lucky enough to enjoy some wind down, you might find everyone a little more relaxed and therefore not focused on their KPIs as much as the rest of the year.

When you use a tool like Geckoboard to share your most important metrics on a dashboard, there are many ways to make sure that your data is visible, but how do you make sure people are engaging with that dashboard during a period of change?

In this post, we’ll walk you through 5 tips to help you keep your data at the heart of your team’s daily activities.


Visualize goals to drive progress

If you need the team to have one final push for the year, visualizing how they’re doing can be a very effective way of motivating the team to meet that goal.

Within Geckoboard you can apply a goal visualization to a number of different types of widget to help show progress towards a specific target. 

Create some friendly festive competition

Another way to motivate your team is with a little competition. Why not create some festive fun that encourages the team to meet their KPIs before the year is out?

Using a leaderboard is very popular to help drive friendly competition. We’ve heard of customers doing all sorts of activities to encourage competition and banter within their teams – things like, leaving work an hour early on Friday, and others buying the winning team pizza. At this time of year, you could offer daily prizes from a stocking or candy for each milestone hit.

Apply custom themes to get your dashboard in the festive spirit

If you want to make a big visual impact, changing the theme of your dashboard will definitely catch everyone’s eye.

We have customers who do this every year and get great engagement from their teams. Your dashboard is part of daily working life, so creating a festive looking dashboard can add a little sparkle.

If you’re on a Geckoboard plan with Advanced Theming, we’ve created three templates for you to use. If your plan doesn’t include Theming already, it’s available as a paid add-on, just drop our Support team a message to say you’re interested (support@geckoboard.com).

To use the themes below, login to Geckoboard, go to the ‘Customize’ button and enter the hex codes listed into the Advanced Themes section.

Pine tree green dashboard theme

Brand: E4C077

Widget background: 00442F

Dash background: 002E1E

Alert: EA5858

Success: 43CD7B

Festive red dashboard theme

Brand: E4C077

Widget background: 731717

Dash background: 932020

Alert: EA5858

Success: 43CD7B

Night’s sky blue dashboard theme

Brand: E4C077

Widget background: 153A4D

Dash background: 051D27

Alert: EA5858

Success: 43CD7B

Add some festive fun images or GIFs

Following on from theming your dashboard to catch attention, another way to do this is with fun images or GIFs. 

Choose some from your favorite holiday movies or TV shows, change them on a daily basis or create a cycle of images that’ll loop through on your dashboard alongside your metrics. Just a little something to draw your team’s attention to the dashboard and make them smile.

Here’s how to add images or GIFs to your dashboard.

Get your dashboard shared in all the places your team is hanging out

Does the way your team work change over the holidays? Perhaps they’re spending more time working from home than usual or are more likely to be on the road. In that case, having your dashboard on a TV screen in the office isn’t going to help engagement with your KPIs.

Make sure you’re sharing your dashboard in places your team will find it and be able to have conversations about the numbers they’re seeing. 

With Geckoboard, there are numerous ways you can make sure all eyes are on your dashboard. Here are a few suggestions:

The quickest and easiest way to get eyes on your dashboard is by creating a sharing link. Regardless of where your team is, they’ll be able to see live data on your dashboard in one click.

Schedule snapshots for Slack and email

If your team collaborates on Slack, sharing a snapshot of your dashboard here on a regular basis is ideal. If you work more on email, then a daily snapshot of performance sent via email can help keep everyone in the loop on what’s happening.

Dashboards on the go with mobile view

When you have a dispersed team, it’s not always possible to get to a laptop or a bigger screen. This is where Geckoboard’s mobile view is very handy. Team members can login to your account and view the dashboard on any device, in any location.

A TV screen for your workplace

Feeling the holiday spirit around the office? Why shouldn’t your dashboard reflect that too. Use the themes and add images as suggested above, then get your dashboard up on a TV screen for all to see. 

Embed your dashboard in other tools your team uses regularly

Did you know that you can embed your dashboard into other tools such as Notion, Confluence, Zendesk, and more? This is a great way of making your KPI dashboard available in places where your team spends a lot of time.

If you’re looking for a dashboard tool to engage your team with their KPIs this festive season, try Geckoboard for free!