Status is the smallest useful unit
A name and an email tell you nothing about what to do. A status tells you everything: interested, waiting on you, waiting on them, done. Four states are enough to run a follow-up operation.
Alerts that mean something
An alert after 24 hours of inactivity is useful because it is tied to a state change, not to a schedule. You are told when something stalled, not every morning regardless.
One screen, one question
The dashboard answers a single question: who needs me next? Everything else is available, but nothing else competes for the first look.