Navigating the Admin Dashboard 

When you first log into the Polco Admin Platform, you land on your organization's main dashboard. From here, every tool, module, and setting is within a few clicks. This article walks through every element of the admin interface — the main dashboard, left-hand navigation, top bar, account menu, and account management pages — so you know exactly where things live and how to get back to them. 

The Main Dashboard

The main dashboard is the first screen you see after logging in. You can return to it at any time by clicking the Polco logo in the top-left corner of the screen.

The dashboard gives you quick-access panels for the platform's core areas:

• Polco AI — Jump straight into an AI assistant session
• Track — Open community performance dashboards
• Engage — Create or manage resident engagement content
• Assess — Review benchmark survey results
• What's New — Latest feature announcements and product updates from the Polco team

It also displays your Community Livability Snapshot — a high-level visual of how your community scores across livability domains — giving you an at-a-glance view of community performance before diving into the data.

The dashboard is a launchpad. Your actual work happens inside the modules accessible from the left-hand navigation.

The Left-Hand Navigation Panel

The left-hand navigation is the spine of the admin platform. It's always visible on the left side of the screen. Sections expand and collapse by clicking the section name or the arrow next to it.

Here is the complete navigation structure:

Polco AI

A single top-level item that opens the full Polco AI interface, where you can access:

• Polly — the data and analytics AI assistant
• Grace — the grant writing AI assistant
• AI Session History — a log of past conversations you can resume or reference

You can also reach Polly without leaving your current page via the Ask Polly AI button that appears persistently on the right edge of every screen in the platform. That opens a slide-out chat panel. The full Polco AI page is better for longer or more complex sessions. 

Engagement

The Engagement section is where all public-facing content — and benchmark surveys — is created, managed, and distributed. Clicking the section name or arrow expands it to reveal:

• Create Content — Opens a content type selector where you choose what to build. Available content types:
• Poll
• Survey
• Content Post
• Live Event
• Engagement Page (Project Page)
• Prioritization
• Budget Simulation
• Housing Simulation
• Taxpayer Receipt
• View Content — A full list of everything your organization has created, across all content types. Filter by type using the tabs along the top: All Content, Pages, Posts, Surveys, Prioritizations, Polls, Live Events, Simulations, and Receipts. Each item shows its status (Draft, Active, Upcoming, or Closed), creation date, and response count.
• Benchmark Surveys — Access to Polco's suite of professionally designed, nationally benchmarked surveys administered by NRC (Polco's research and thought leadership arm). Surveys your organization has ordered appear here with links to reports and management tools. Surveys not yet ordered show options to view a demo report or request information. Available surveys:
• NCS — National Community Survey™
• CASOA — Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults™
• NBS — National Business Survey™
• NES — National Employee Survey™
• NLES — National Law Enforcement Survey™
• NES-LE — National Employee Survey — Law Enforcement
• Resident Panel — Displays the residents subscribed to your organization's profile. Shows subscriber growth over time, geographic distribution (mapped from voter registration records), and demographic breakdowns by age, gender, and race. This is your engaged resident audience.
• Saved Data Points — Bookmarked indicators from Track dashboards you've flagged for quick access. Useful for building reports, presentations, or content posts without having to navigate back through Track dashboards each time.
• Outreach — Distribution tools for your engagement content. Includes your shareable public profile URL, a custom short URL (if configured), and email list management for sending targeted invitations to specific resident groups.
• Polco Library — Pre-built survey templates, poll questions, and outreach copy ready to customize and publish. A useful starting point when you need to move quickly or want to use standardized, benchmarked question sets. 

Track Data

The Track Data section is your window into GPAL-powered community performance data. Expanding it reveals:

• Community Livability — The Community Livability Snapshot: a matrix showing how your community performs across all livability domains, plotted by quality (horizontal axis) against resident-rated importance (vertical axis). Domains fall into one of three categories: On Track, Needs Attention, or Possible Excess.
• Overview — The Track Overview Dashboard: a consolidated summary of index scores across all livability domains in a single view with key filters at the top.
• Data Dashboards — The domain-level dashboards where you explore individual performance indicators in depth. A dropdown at the top of the page lets you switch between all available domains:
• Community Connection
• Economy
• Education, Arts & Culture
• Finance
• Health & Wellness
• Housing & Community Design
• Mobility
• Natural Environment
• Parks & Recreation
• Safety
• Utilities
• Each domain dashboard has three filter controls:
• Show Data For — Your community or a saved comparison group
• Data to Display — GPAL (standard) or GPAL for Older Adults
• Compare Data Against Communities — Nationwide, Similar Population Size Nationwide, My State, or Similar Population Size in My State
• Data Sources — A reference page listing the national sources that feed GPAL (Census, CDC, BLS, EPA, BEA, FEMA, HUD, and others), so you always know where a specific indicator comes from.
• Community Disparity — A specialized view for understanding equity and access gaps across population groups within your community. 

Account

The Account section manages your organization's public-facing identity and internal administrative configuration. It contains two pages:

• Profile — Controls how your organization appears to residents on the public platform
• Settings — Manages your administrator team, roles, and permissions

Both are covered in detail in the sections below.

The Top Bar

The top bar spans the full width of the admin interface. It contains three elements:

Polco Logo (far left)

Clicking the Polco logo returns you to the main dashboard from anywhere in the platform.

Help / Request Information (? icon, top right)

The question mark icon opens a request form that sends a message directly to the Polco team. Use it to ask for help, request information about a feature, or kick off a support conversation. Your account email is pre-filled automatically.

Profile Menu (your name, top right)

Displays your name and the organization you're currently working in — for example, "John Smith / Polcoville." Clicking it opens a small dropdown with two options:

• Switch Profiles — Opens the Switch Publishers modal (see below)
• Log Out — Ends your session and returns you to the login page 

Switching Between Publisher Profiles

If your account has access to more than one organization — for example, a consultant managing multiple city accounts, or a Polco team member — clicking Switch Profiles opens the Switch Publishers modal.

The modal contains a Search Publishers field. Click the field to open a searchable dropdown that lists all organizations your account can access. Each entry shows:

• Organization name
• Presiding Area — the geographic area the publisher covers
• Total Responses — cumulative responses collected across that publisher's content
• Number of Admins — how many admin users are on that account

Select an organization and click Select to switch into that publisher's context. Your session stays active — switching profiles does not log you out. Click Cancel to close the modal without switching.

Important: Always confirm you're in the correct publisher profile before creating or publishing content. The organization name displayed in the top-right corner of the screen tells you which profile you're currently working in.

Account — Profile Settings

Navigate to Account → Profile to manage how your organization appears to the public on Polco.

What you can configure:

• Profile Logo — Upload a square image that represents your organization. This appears across all public engagement content. Recommended format: square (e.g. 300×300 pixels or larger).
• Profile Cover Image — A header image that appears on your public Polco profile page. Recommended size: 600×350 pixels.
• Profile Name (required) — The public-facing name of your organization as it appears to residents (e.g. "City of Rocklin" or "Placer County"). This field is required.
• Posted By — An optional label that clarifies who is posting content on behalf of the organization (e.g. "City Staff" or "Mayor's Office"). Helps build transparency and trust with residents.
• Description — A short introduction or call to action encouraging residents to participate. Appears on your public profile page.

Save options:

• Save and Preview — Saves your changes and opens a preview of how your public profile looks to residents
• Save — Saves without previewing

Sampled Survey Settings (further down the Profile page) — If your organization has or is ordering a benchmark survey from NRC, this section collects the information needed to produce mailing materials: your logo, the name and title of the person signing invitation letters, their signature, contact phone number, return mailing address, ZIP codes for sampling, and GIS boundary shapefiles defining your jurisdiction. This section also shows your organization's Shareable URL, Slug, and Custom Short URL for distribution purposes. 

Account — Settings (Administrators)

Navigate to Account → Settings to manage who has access to your organization's admin account and what each person can do.

The Settings page has two tabs:

Administrators tab

Lists all current admin users on your account with their name, email, and assigned role. From here you can:

• Add Admin — Enter a name, email address, and role to invite a new user. They'll receive an email invitation to set up their account.
• Change a role — Use the role dropdown next to any user's name to update their permission level. Changes take effect immediately.
• Remove a user — Click Remove next to a user, confirm the action in the pop-up, and they'll be removed from the account.

The page also shows how many of your available seats are in use (e.g. "8 of 10 seats available").

Roles and Permissions tab

A detailed comparison table showing exactly what each role can and cannot do — useful for deciding what role to assign to a new team member.

The four admin roles:

• Manager
  Full access — create, edit, publish, delete content, manage admin accounts, change roles. The first admin on any account is a Manager by default.
  
• Publisher
  Can view, create, edit, publish, and share content. Can view and download results. Cannot delete content or manage admin accounts.
  
• Collaborator
  Can view, create, and edit content. Can view and download results. Cannot publish, delete, or manage admin accounts.
  
• Viewer
  Can view and share content and results only. Cannot create, edit, publish, or delete anything.

Seat limits:

Each organization has 10 shared seats across Manager, Publisher, and Collaborator roles combined. Viewer seats are unlimited. Contact your Customer Success Manager or email success@polco.us if you need more than 10 active seats.

Only users with the Manager role can add or remove admins and change role assignments. 

Quick Reference: Where Is Everything?

Create a poll, survey, or post
Engagement → Create Content 

See all published content
Engagement → View Content

Access benchmark survey reports 
Engagement → Benchmark Surveys 

View your subscriber list 
Engagement → Resident Panel 

Bookmark a data point from Track 
Engagement → Saved Data Points 

Manage email lists and share links 
Engagement → Outreach 

Find a survey template 
Engagement → Polco Library 

View community livability data 
Track Data → Community Livability 

View domain dashboards 
Track Data → Data Dashboards 

See where Track data comes from 
Track Data → Data Sources 

View equity and access data 
Track Data → Community Disparity 

Chat with Polly or Grace 
Polco AI (top of nav) or Ask Polly AI button (right edge) 

Update your org's public profile 
Account → Profile 

Add or remove admin users 
Account → Settings → Administrators 

Review role permissions 
Account → Settings → Roles and Permissions 

Switch to a different org 
Profile menu (top right) → Switch Profiles 

Log out 
Profile menu (top right) → Log Out 

Contact Polco for help 
? icon (top right) 

Return to main dashboard 
Click the Polco logo (top left) 

Related Articles

• What is Polco?
• How the platform is structured
• Admin vs. Resident interfaces
• Roles, permissions, and user management
• Engagement tools overview
• Introduction to Track