Dashboard Overview

Your AcaTrove dashboard is the first thing you see after signing in. It is designed to surface the information most relevant to your role, so a professor sees different content than a graduate student or a librarian. This page explains how persona-adaptive dashboards work and how to customize your experience.

How Persona-Adaptive Dashboards Work

When you first create your AcaTrove account, you select a primary role (for example, Professor/PI, Graduate Student, or Administrator). AcaTrove uses this role to determine which widgets, metrics, and quick actions appear on your dashboard.

Each persona has a curated set of panels. A professor's dashboard highlights active projects, grant deadlines, and student progress. A graduate student's dashboard foregrounds thesis milestones and advisor communications. An administrator's dashboard emphasizes system health and compliance status. The goal is to reduce noise and keep the most actionable information front and center.

Dashboard overview showing persona-adaptive layout

Switching Your Dashboard View

If you hold multiple roles -- for instance, you are both a department chair and a principal investigator -- you can switch between dashboard views without changing your account settings.

1. Open the dashboard by navigating to /dashboard or clicking the home icon in the sidebar.
2. Locate the persona selector in the upper-right corner of the dashboard header.
3. Click it to reveal the list of available dashboard types.
4. Select the view you want. The dashboard will reload with the corresponding widgets and metrics.

Your most recently selected view is remembered across sessions.

Persona switcher dropdown in the dashboard header

Common Dashboard Elements

While each persona has unique panels, several elements are shared across all dashboards:

• Quick Actions bar -- a row of shortcut buttons for common tasks such as creating a project, uploading a publication, or opening the AI panel. See the Quick Actions guide for details.
• Recent Activity feed -- a chronological list of your latest actions and notifications.
• Search bar -- a global search field that queries papers, projects, and collaborators.

Customizing Your Dashboard

You can rearrange dashboard panels by dragging them to a new position. Collapse panels you use less frequently by clicking the minimize icon in each panel's header. These layout preferences are saved automatically.

Getting Help

If your dashboard does not reflect your current role, visit Settings > Profile and update your primary persona. Changes take effect immediately the next time you load the dashboard.

For detailed guidance on any specific dashboard type, refer to the corresponding article in this section.