We recently released a major update to Video Dashboard, a free WordPress plugin we originally built years ago to make it easier to put training videos directly inside the WordPress admin dashboard.
The plugin has always been simple by design. You add a few videos, choose who should be able to see them, and they appear right on the Dashboard where clients and site editors are already working.
That part hasn’t changed.
What has changed is almost everything around it.
A much-needed overhaul
The redesigned settings screen makes it easier to add, preview, organize, and describe training videos.
The old version still worked, but the settings page was definitely showing its age.
You had to choose how many videos you wanted first, which would then generate that number of fields. Reordering videos was cumbersome. Video support was relatively limited. And while it was functional, managing a larger list of videos wasn’t particularly pleasant.
Version 2.0 replaces that with a much more modern interface.
You can now:
- Add and remove videos dynamically
- Drag and drop videos to change their order
- Add optional custom titles and descriptions
- See video thumbnails, titles, and providers directly in the settings page
- Use a wider range of YouTube URL formats
- Embed videos from Vimeo, Wistia, and Vidyard
- Use additional video providers supported through WordPress oEmbed
- Control the minimum WordPress user role that can see the videos
The plugin also does a better job of telling you when a video is actually gone versus when it simply can’t retrieve a preview.
Built for WordPress client training
Training videos appear directly inside the WordPress Dashboard where clients can easily find them.
We originally built Video Dashboard because this is a problem we run into constantly with client websites.
You can send someone documentation or a training video by email, but six months later they usually have no idea where it is.
Putting that training directly inside WordPress makes much more sense.
For example, we can add videos showing a client how to:
- Update a page
- Add a blog post
- Manage WooCommerce products
- Review form submissions
- Change images
- Perform other site-specific tasks
When they need help later, the instructions are sitting right there in their WordPress Dashboard.
That has always been the main reason the plugin exists, and version 2.0 makes it substantially better at that job.
Existing installations should keep working
One of our biggest priorities with this update was backward compatibility.
Video Dashboard has more than 600 active installations, and many of those sites have probably had the plugin configured for years.
We did not want an update that suddenly broke everyone’s existing videos.
Version 2.0 automatically migrates older settings into the new interface while preserving the original values. It also keeps support for older YouTube IDs and legacy URL handling as a fallback.
We tested upgrades using a variety of existing configurations before releasing the update, including full YouTube URLs, raw YouTube IDs, Vimeo links, and other formats.
So far, the rollout has gone smoothly and a large percentage of users have already upgraded without any reported problems.
Still free and available through WordPress.org
Video Dashboard remains completely free and is available through the official WordPress plugin directory.
If you already use it, version 2.0 will appear as a normal WordPress plugin update.
If you haven’t used it before and you provide WordPress training or support to clients, it may be useful for your own sites as well.
Download Video Dashboard from WordPress.org:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/video-dashboard/
Why we still maintain small WordPress plugins
Video Dashboard isn’t a huge commercial plugin, and it isn’t intended to become one.
We maintain it because it solves a practical problem that comes up in the work we do every day.
That is also a big part of how we approach WordPress generally at PageCrafter. Most of our work today involves hosting, maintaining, troubleshooting, and improving WordPress websites for small businesses. Maintaining our own plugins keeps us involved with the platform at a deeper level and gives us another reason to keep up with changes in WordPress itself.
If your business has a WordPress website and you would rather have someone else handle the updates, security, backups, hosting, and ongoing maintenance, learn more about our WordPress maintenance plans or managed WordPress hosting.
