That is the expected behavior, are they able to add widgets once they're registered?

I managed to find 4 widgets referenced on the "Your satistics" page but no facility to add or activate widgets. Is it not possible to make them show by default?

Okay, I figured it out the cool theme and proskin themes won't work with the dashboard so the user can't add widgets.

Is there a way to show them by default or should I just let the users do it?

Thanks

The 4 widgets that are created when elgg installs are the admin widgets - you should be able to define default widgets in the admin defaults widget section.  These widgets will only be created for new users, not exising users.  This process can be interrupted by plugins/themes if that's what the authors intended (or didn't intend if it's a bug).

Thanks Matt,

Is it worth trying to find a way to show the widgets by default or is this something Elgg will not be able to do?

Elgg itself should be able to do it (I haven't tested lately, but if a fresh install of elgg fails to do so then it's a bug).  If a theme or plugin interferes with the process either by design or as a bug the only thing you can do (if you're not a programmer that is) is disable the offending plugin or live wihtout default widgets.

If you want to test out a clean elgg install to make sure it's not a core bug that would be a good start.  If it is a core bug it can be reported here: https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/issues

Thanks for your help Matt:)

Could you recommend any developers we can engage to make Elgg do what we want?

Yep, you can post on the professional services group to see what kind of public response you get.

http://community.elgg.org/groups/profile/75603/professional-services

I'll also PM you with some of my personal recommendations.