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15 Best Dashboard WordPress Plugins to Enhance Admin Area

Since WordPress came into existence, it has helped startups, small businesses, writers, visionaries, and bloggers to create and publish content online. WordPress is a well-known blogging platform that allows you to change the look of your blog/ website or customize individual parts of it- like the Admin dashboard. The administration dashboard is where the owner of the website controls or works on site or blog. WordPress dashboard essentially contains easy to use customized tools and information that assist an administrator in managing the website. These tools can be plugins or themes, and they help to improve the front end’s functionality and enhances the usability of the dashboard.

In this article, we will look at 15 of the best admin dashboard themes and plugins for WordPress.

1. WordPress Admin Dashboard Color Schemes

Among the simplest WP plugins is the Admin Color Schemes. This plugin allows you to customize the dashboard with color styles of your choice from red, orange, green, blue, black and so forth. Plus, there are variations to different colors such as different shades of blue. The dashboard can be boring, but with colors for different sections, you can customize and make it amazing. However, you should the right colors based on whether you are creating a personal site or for a client. But bright colors enhance dashboard experience.

2. Admin Menu Editor WordPress Dashboard Plugin

The Admin Menu Editor is an excellent plugin that every web administrator should have. This plugin allows administrators to customize the WordPress default menu to one’s choice. You can create a new custom menu or rearrange the default one to your liking. This plugin is fantastic in that it gives the dashboard better usability. You can, for example, re-organize the menu to make options that you find hard to fetch more visible. Overall, tweaking the menu to an arrangement that fits you best can improve your productivity and make the admin dashboard more interesting.

3.  AG Custom Admin WordPress Admin Theme

If you are looking for a full dashboard customization package, AG Custom Admin is the right plugin to have. Unlike most of the other styles, this Admin plugin works great for bloggers who want to brand their dashboard. A traditional Admin theme will only allow you to change your dashboard color. But the AG Custom Admin will enable you to do much more. For the administrator dashboard, you can, for example, hide items that you don’t wish to be visible, change elements, add own colors and icons, or even remove the official WP branding. Plus, you can also extend or remove the items, and change colors in the administrator menu. The plugin has other feature too that come without any cost.

4. Client Dash for WordPress Admin Panel

Do you need to customize your menu list to your client’s requirement? Client Dash is a great plugin that comes with lots of features. And the best of these features the ability to edit the client’s menu. Plus, you can personalize the WP dashboard using the widget manager. As a developer, the plugin helps you create a clean and functional WP dashboard for your client.

5.  Ultimate Dashboard to Replace WordPress Dashboard Widgets

With the Ultimate Dashboard plugin, you can simplify how your WordPress looks. If your default Admin dashboard is cluttered, this plugin can help you declutter it by replacing or removing widgets. It is especially helpful. The plugin also allows you to use quick links to replace default widgets for faster access, support third-party widgets, customize admin and login screen as a way of branding your website and an option of creating Vimeo and YouTube video widgets that open in a lightbox within the dashboard.

6.  Dashboard Notes for WP Admin Dashboard

For any content creator/ writer, notetaking is quite essential as ideas are more likely to be forgotten when they are not written down. Even though WordPress allows you to put down your thoughts in the form of draft, you cannot keep it for long. That is why you need Dashboard Notes plugin. It helps you to save your thoughts/ ideas in the Admin dashboard. With this plugin, you can create a note easy and keep it on the dashboard for quick access in the future. To create a new note, click on “Appearance” then “Widgets” and add your note.

7.  Adminimize WordPress Control Panel

Looking to minimize your Admin panel? The admin area, especially for a multi-author site/ blog, can become quite messy and cumbersome. If you are having such an issue, installing the Adminimize plugin can quickly solve the problem. This WP plugin works by removing or hiding unnecessary settings from the screen to keep the menu simple and functional.

In the Admin dashboard, there are several options available but not all need to be used. It is better to leave some of them alone. This plugin is ideal for making the admin interface clean, functional, and simple.

“Adminimize is especially helpful in boosting security for a multi-author site. It helps to boost security by allowing an administrator to control the settings and content others may see and operate with, as well as to deactivate specific parts of the backend to other admins and users,” – says Kate Attick, Social Media Manager at Skillroads.

8.  Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress

This plugin allows you to see all the statistics provided by Google Analytics directly from your administrator dashboard. See, while several WP plugins can give you an exhaustive summary of Google Analytics, to access that information will require clicking on various options on the panel. However, by installing the Google Analytics plugin, you can view all relevant statistics upon logging in to the back-end of your website.

You should definitely try out this particular WordPress plugin for this reason- it allows you to access all statistics regarding the performance of your website in real-time. In turn, you can evaluate the performance of the site as per the moment of logging in. Some of the critical aspects you can review using this plugin include page views, users, the cumulative number of sessions, organic searches, sessions/page, bounce rate, etc. And it does not stop there: with this plugin, you can also gain access to analytics reports, perform event tracking, view basic traffic, see custom dimensions, and so forth.

9.  Dashboard Commander

Undoubtedly, the WP dashboard has some of the best dashboard widgets. Take, for instance,s the Recent Comment widget and the right Now widget. Yet still, upon installing a specific WordPress administration theme or plugin to your site, some extra widgets get added to the website effectually. So, how does the “Dashboard Commander” come to play here? Well, it allows you full control over these widgets.

This plugin enables you to manage all widgets that come with the other plugins you install as well as those that are built-in. Moreover, the Dashboard Commander allows for the hiding of particular widgets so as to avoid cluttering your administrator interface. And not to forget, with this plugin, you can set the minimum access level for every widget by going to Settings and then Dashboard Commander which is added automatically upon installation of the plugin.

10.Remove Dashboard Access

For those running a multi-author site, this plugin comes in quite handy. As the name suggests, Remove Dashboard Access assists when you want to restrict certain users from accessing particular parts of the admin panel. It gives you the choice of providing exclusive access to certain admins or making it more accessible by implementing any of the following: admin+author+editor, admin+editors, or even providing some capability limitations.

Other than that, this plugin enables you to allow multiple users to edit their individual profiles on the dashboard. Furthermore, it also gives you the option of leaving a message on the login screen. Lastly, Remove Dashboard Access allows you to limit users access from specific theme toolbars/ plugin.

11.User Role Editor

This plugin is ideal for multi-user sites. It enables you to specify roles to every user on the website. For instance, you can assign a user(s) to add media files to the site only. Using the User Role Editor, you can also allow particular users to edit pages, content, and posts. All these functions can be done fast by merely clicking on checkboxes.

12.Download Monitor

This WP plugin is for websites that offer downloadable content to their users, and thus there is a need to manage these particular files. The Download Monitor provides an interface on the control panel from where you can manage and monitor all downloadable files on the website.

Better yet, this plugin provides several other useful options such as support for different versions of downloadable files, the function of inserting download links to posts, logging downloads, and so forth. And that’s not about it. With the Download Monitor, you can also add, delete, or edit all downloadable files from your dashboard.

13.Erident Custom Login & Dashboard

Accessing your WP dashboard and being greeted with a style that you created gives one a priceless feeling. The Erident Custom Login & Dashboard helps administrators to quickly change form styles, background images, color scheme among a host of other minor settings that make up for the design of the admin panel.

14.The Ultra WordPress Admin Theme

The Ultra WordPress Admin plugin is excellent for improving the aesthetic appeal of WordPress administration panels. It gives the admin access to many colors to enable the creation of fantastic color schemes. Another plus of this plugin is that it gives you access to White label branding tools and three design presets.

15.Mojo Admin Toolbox

This project is Will Wilson’s brainchild that went mainstream due to the popularity of its features. The Mojo Admin Toolbox configures and optimizes both the WP dashboard and the website. It helps make the site less cluttered and more suitable for brand experience. This plugin can also be used for hiding the commenting system, creating default avatars, making amendments to the login page, changing footer notes, and so forth.

All the WP plugins highlighted will make your experience as an administrator worthwhile. Just, make sure to take ample time to explore these plugins and see how they speak to you and your brand as well.

Feel free to offer any suggestions of excellent plugins not discussed here. And if you love the piece, well, share it or drop a comment below. Adieu!