If you are using WordPress for your blog, website, forum and e-commerce needs, then customizing WordPress admin dashboard is an essential element.

Customizing WordPress dashboard has few reasons behind it.

Customize it for a client before handing it to the client.

Ease of access to different elements of the dashboard; increase productivity.

Customizing it to get the feel of a customized website.

Customize it for different user roles.

Complete Personalization.

If you have put your hard work in developing a WordPress website, then applying a little bit of more effort will only add to your benefit.

How to customize WordPress admin?

Customizing WordPress dashboard will require plugins to completely transform WordPress dashboard to a new white labeled dashboard. Dashboard customizer plugin and White Labeling will make the dashboard look fully customizable.

Login Customizer

Login page is the beginning for customization. Default WordPress login page has a prominent WordPress logo, input text areas, submit button and a link back to WordPress.org.

Tesla Login Customizer is a free plugin that can help you in customizing your login page. It offers some pre designed login template to choose from. Few of the features it offers are:

Change font sizes and colors

Add a custom logo

Change background colors or images

Add CAPTCHA

Those pre-designed templates offer quickest way to redesign an attractive login page.

The most appreciated feature of this plugin is it can redirect a user to any page after successful authentication, but this feature is available for premium users only.

And you can even redirect users after they log in, which is a powerful feature that’s usually locked behind premium plugins.

Admin Theme

Just like WordPress theme, admin theme customizes WordPress dashboard, creating a complete white labeled dashboard. By customizing dashboard you can arrange your admin area for improved productivity; rearranging and omitting elements which are less or never used.

WPShapere is a complete WordPress admin dashboard theme that lets you customize the entire look of default WordPress admin theme to a customized white labeled theme.

It offers following prominent features:

Unlimited color options + 16 pre-made Pro themes.

White Label Branding.

Hide, rename and sort admin menu items.

Privilege Users who can access to all menu items.

Manage and Create custom dashboard widgets.

Hide unwanted widgets from dashboard.

Manage Admin Bar elements.

Ability to add custom links to the admin bar.

White Label Emails.

Multi-site Network Support – Global option/Individual blog option.

Add custom css styles for login and admin pages.

You can make all of these tweaks without any coding efforts. Unfortunately, it is not available for free and you can buy it on codecanyon.

As an alternative to it, you can use White Label CMS, which is free and offer some similar features.

Some features are:

Add a custom logo to the header, footer, and login page

Add custom dashboard widgets

Rearrange menu items and/or hide them from certain user roles

Display different dashboard profiles for users with different roles.

User Roles

Assigning power and access to different user groups is another challenge. Users should see those elements which they have access to.

Adminimize is one of such plugins which is used to hide items based on user roles. It cleanup the mess in admin menu efficiently and supports multi-author websites.

Its features include:

Activate/Deactivate every part of menu and sub-menu.

Meta fields can be administered separately for posts and pages.

Certain parts of the write menu can be deactivated for admins and users.

The header of the backend can be minimized and optimized per user.

Custom Columns

Custom columns lets you add custom columns to page/post listings and more.

There are 120+ columns to choose from to display in posts and page dashboard menu. This plugin displays various columns like featured image column etc with sorting feature. It works with all content types and can integrate with lots of plugins, including Advanced Custom Fields and WooCommerce.

Minimalist Dashboard

For those websites where customization isn’t much needed a minimalistic dashboard can prove to be a time saver. The WordPress dashboard can get a little cluttered. Custom Dashboard Widgets helps less serve some of only required dashboard elements by allowing you to replace all the standard home page widgets with simpler versions.

Consisting of an icon and label beneath, each widget can be displayed or hidden based on a user’s role. You can also add your own custom links as well.

User Edit History

It is a plus point to have live track of changes done by users. Simple History is a plugin which adds a widget to the dashboard home page that shows which users recently added or updated posts when a widget has been added or removed or even uploaded an image to the Media Gallery.

It can track changes on

Posts and pages

see who added, updated or deleted a post or page

Attachments

see who added, updated or deleted an attachment

Taxonomies (Custom taxonomies, categories, tags)

see who added, updated or deleted an taxonomy

Comments

see who edited, approved or removed a comment

Widgets

get info when someone adds, updates or removes a widget in a sidebar

Plugins

activation and deactivation

User profiles

info about added, updated or removed users

User logins

see when a user login & logout. Also see when a user fails to login (good way to catch brute-force login attempts).

Failed user logins

see when someone has tried to log in, but failed. The log will then include ip address of the possible hacker.

Menu edits

Option screens

view details about changes made in the different settings sections of WordPress. Things like changes to the site title and the permalink structure will be logged.

These admin customizations can be implemented individually and according to need. Some plugins can transform whole admin dashboard into a customized dashboard and some can add specific functionalities.

Wrapping Up Things

If you are creating sites for your clients then you should definitely consider white labeling and if you have your own website then consider customizing your dashboard according to elements which are used on regular basis like daily sale report or add post; it increases efficiency and productivity.

If you have any suggestions or doubt, do comment below and get a conversation kicking.

Photo by Fikret tozak on Unsplash

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