Dashboard home

Overview

The dashboard home is the main screen when you open the Mallard Bay admin dashboard for your outfitter (the app’s root path, /). It is built to get you oriented quickly: a welcome line at the top, then a stack of sections that can include promotional banners, highlighted bookings, shortcuts into other tools, tips, reporting-style metrics, feature highlights, and alerts.

What appears in each section—titles, ordering, which bookings or metrics show up, shortcut labels, banner copy, and alert text—is provided by Mallard Bay for your selected outfitter. The dashboard loads that layout from the server, so two outfitters or the same outfitter over time may see different sections or content even though the page works the same way.

This page is a launch pad into everyday work: bookings, clients, listings, payments, reporting, and other areas are typically reachable from the shortcuts, tips, banners, booking cards, or the reporting “View more” control when those blocks are included for your account.

Prerequisites

• An outfitter must be selected when you use the normal home URL (/). If no outfitter is selected, you’ll see a prompt to choose one instead of the full home layout (admin users who aren’t impersonating an outfitter see this empty state).

• Home content is fetched per outfitter. If you manage more than one outfitter, switch the active outfitter to refresh the welcome message and sections for that business.

• Exact section mix and copy are not editable in this repo’s UI—they are driven by the data served for your outfitter. (Whether your organization can change some of this through Mallard Bay support or internal configuration is not represented in this codebase.)

Step-by-step: Using the dashboard home

1. Open the dashboard home

1. Sign in to the Mallard Bay admin dashboard.
2. Select your outfitter if prompted.
3. Go to / (the default landing route for the dashboard).

You should see the welcome line and, below it, whichever sections your outfitter’s layout includes.

2. Read banners and announcements

When a banner section is present, banners appear in an auto-advancing carousel. Each banner can include marketing-style copy, imagery, and calls to action that link to URLs supplied for that banner (often another place in the dashboard or an external destination—specific targets come from the server, not from something you configure on this screen in the code reviewed here).

3. Review highlighted bookings

A bookings section shows a horizontal set of cards for selected bookings. Each card shows the listing (trip) title, a subtitle with lead guest name and party size, and an action that opens that booking’s detail in the app.

This section only appears when there is at least one booking to show. Which bookings are chosen is defined on the server; this repository does not specify business rules (for example “next 7 days” vs “needs action”).

4. Use quick access and feature shortcuts

• Quick access is a compact row of shortcut actions (label, optional New or Preview badge, icon). Tapping an action follows the URL provided for that item—typically another dashboard route.
• Features is a similar idea with a larger card layout (title, short description, icon, link).

Together, these are the main in-app shortcuts from home into tools you use to run the business (bookings pipeline, clients, listings, integrations, etc.—exact items are server-defined).

5. Follow tips

Tips appear as a slider of cards with a title, message, and sometimes a button that navigates to a related URL. Use these for suggested next steps or product guidance your outfitter is meant to see.

6. Check reporting snapshot (if shown)

When a reporting section is included, you’ll see a grid of metric cards and a section title from the server. If a “View more” control is present, it opens the linked URL. In the current implementation, that navigation uses a new browser tab by default.

Which metrics appear and what the “View more” link points to are not fixed in the frontend—they come from the reporting block in your home payload.

7. Handle alerts

Alerts can surface important notices (with severity styling), optional detail text, and sometimes an action that navigates to a URL.

• On wide desktop layouts, alerts may appear in a fixed column on the right of the home content.
• On narrower layouts, the same alerts are shown inline in the main column instead.

If there are no alerts, the alerts block is omitted. If a section has no items (no banners, no shortcuts, no tips, no metrics, etc.), that entire section is hidden so the page stays scannable.

8. Use global search from the header (anywhere in the dashboard)

The header search is not limited to the home page, but it pairs well with it: when you know what you’re looking for, type a query at least two characters long. Results are grouped (each group can show a count and a “view more”-style path). Choosing a result navigates within the dashboard using the URL returned for that hit.

Search runs in the context of the currently selected outfitter. Very short queries are ignored by design.

Common pitfalls

• “Nothing on the home page” / empty state — On /, you must select an outfitter first. Without it, you won’t get the normal home experience.
• A section you expect is missing — Sections with no content are not shown (for example, no bookings section if there are zero highlighted bookings; no reporting section if there are zero metrics).
• Search seems inactive — You need at least two characters; also ensure an outfitter is selected so search has context.
• Alerts “moved” — On small screens, alerts appear in the main flow; on large screens they may appear in the right-hand column. Same data, different layout.
• Reporting “View more” opened a new tab — That matches how the current app handles that link.
• Can’t control banners or order from the UI described here — Section titles, order, and membership are carried in the home payload from the server. How to request changes is outside what this repository defines.

How this ties to the rest of Mallard Bay (outfitter concepts)

• Bookings — The home bookings strip is a shallow preview; full status, payments, forms, waivers, guest comms, and operational detail live on each booking record after you open it.
• Listings — Booking cards reference listing titles; deeper listing setup (availability, pricing, marketing, documents) lives under listing management, often reachable via shortcuts if your home layout includes them.
• Clients — Guest names on cards reflect client / party data tied to the booking; client lists, outreach, and CRM-style workflows are elsewhere in the dashboard (again, shortcuts may point there).
• Reporting — The home reporting block is a snapshot; broader reports and analytics are behind the metrics block’s “View more” link when provided.
• Leads and quotes — Not called out as their own home section types in this codebase; if they appear, it would be through shortcuts, tips, banners, search, or alerts rather than dedicated home section types evident here.

Related workflows

• Booking operations — Open a highlighted booking from home, or use search or navigation to the full bookings workflow.
• Reporting — Use the reporting section’s View more when present, or navigate to reporting from the app menu if your layout includes it elsewhere.
• Day-to-day navigation — Rely on quick access / features rows for common destinations, tips for guidance, banners for announcements, and header search when you have a specific record or area in mind.

What this article does not claim

The frontend does not define: which bookings or metrics appear, default section order beyond whatever order the API returns, whether your outfitter’s home layout can be customized, or the full list of shortcut destinations. Those behaviors are controlled by Mallard Bay’s server-side configuration and data for dashboardHome, which is not visible in full in this repository.