Using Digital Dashboards to Implement and Evaluate Programs

Design Principles

 Increased transparency The FRSAN Program provides a suite of resources and training to support

the mental wellbeing of farmers and ranchers. This dynamic and comprehensive approach creates a

complicated process, which the Program team sought to improve by clarifying the processes and

increasing access to the most current data.

 Visualizes workflow process The digital dashboard provides a visually intuitive way to

understand the entirety of the programming process and it allows users a simple way to navigate

between the digital portals and tools that are central to efficiently delivering programs and reporting

impacts and outcomes.

 Flexibility Designing a process that was user friendly and responsive to the needs of the Program

team informed the development of the dashboard. The entirety of the dashboard is controlled by

the external evaluation team, which allows the team to quickly refine and improve the dashboard to

better meet the needs of the entire team.

 Centralized access to information The external evaluation team worked to centralize key

planning documents for event planning and reporting, as well as digital marketing and resource

distribution, which is now accessed via the Farm Stress Dashboard. For example, key program

objectives, registration codes, and training videos are only one click away. A second example

includes the creation of a scholarship tracker which helps to ensure that the program team meets

its goals, and that budget resources are allocated as proposed.

 Standardization of scheduling and data collection Centralizing access to the suite of platforms

improved efficiency. For example, centralizing the scheduling process streamlined the planning and

event tracking process for five separate intervention programs allowing the program to efficiently

track progress. Similarly, standardization of the data collection process across platforms greatly

reduces the time spent reporting, organizing, and cleaning the data, freeing up more time to report

impacts and outcomes.

 Real time data Managing the goals, objectives, and the budget requires access to timely

information, and improved data collection and planning processes helped to increase the entire

team's access to real time data. This was key because the team has to closely monitor events to

ensure that they are reaching the target audiences, and to ensure that it fully leverages the

scholarships that cover the participants registration costs.