Create a Progress Tracker

Learn how to make a progress tracker with your custom user data.

Kaitlyn Foster avatar
Written by Kaitlyn Foster
Updated over a week ago

Your dashboard is a great way to transparently display the goals and progress your city is making. If you are actively working to make progress on certain data points, you can show your progress through your mySidewalk dashboard using the progress tracker tool.

To add one to your dashboard, click the Progress Tracker icon. 

Unlike other data visualizations, this one will not prompt you to select mySidewalk or your data. Instead, you will be prompted to make a progress tracker with a template our team has developed. You can start by downloading the template, filling it out using a spreadsheet editor such as Google Sheets of Microsoft Excel, then re-uploading it to mySidewalk. The progress tracker template will appear for download when you open the progress tracker data visualization. 

In the Template:

  1. The only columns/headers that need to be edited by you are Title, Start Date, End Date, and Status. These can be left blank if that suits your needs better, but filling in all columns here can aid in the progression of your story. 

  2. The Color column can be updated with a hex code to change the color. Here is a link to a “Hex Code Picker” to help you find the colors you’d like to use. 

  3. The Title Link column can be left blank. If you choose to use this column tool, adding a URL here will make the progress step into a link to another webpage. 

Title: This column tells the progress tracker what you want the name of each of your steps to be. Edit the top row in this column from "Title" to whatever fits your needs. Do not delete this column.

Title Link: If you want a step to include a link to a webpage, paste it here. If you won't be including links, do not delete the column - just leave it blank.

Start Date: While the start date is 100% optional, a date provides your audience an idea of what to expect from your team and how recently your dashboard has been updated. You can also change the name to some other metric you want to display. For example, “# of Stakeholders Engaged”. You can delete this column.

End Date: Just like with the start date, the end date sets audience expectations. You can edit this column name, too, or delete it.

Status: If you choose to use this column, make sure to update it every time you begin the next step or hit the next milestone. If you do not want to use this column, you can delete it.

Once your .CSV is filled out, save it, then either drag your .CSV to the Drop your file here box in the edit menu, or click Choose a file to upload it.

After upload, you can change the title of your project, add a project description, toggle whether or not the progress icon shows up, and toggle whether or not the step numbers show up.

Pro-Tip: To update your progress tracker, open the edit menu and click Download Current CSV. Then make your updates, save it as “original file name_v2” so you know it’s the second version (or third, or fourth), and re-upload by clicking on the file name above the download buttons and importing the new .CSV.

Pro-Tip: Use your organization's default colors. You can also use a different default color than the rest to indicate which step your organization is currently working on. For example:

Ready to learn more? Explore other ways to track your progress with mySidewalk:
How To: Create a Goal Tracker

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