1. Make the Admin Dashboard show real time data without having to manually reload the page.
I suggest to use the brand new SignalR library (rewritten for ASP.NET Core, so any nopcommerce beyond 4.1 will be a perfect candidate) that would push data to the browsers opened in the Dashboard panel running the SignalR javascript client.
The simplest solution would be just to reload the whole page upon a configurable event, e.g. a new order placed. For large shops with lots of order this could be made less often, like every 10 orders or so. Or of course completely disabled.
2. Additional use: declare the nopCommerce standard Push Notification Protocol
The SignalR hub module in the server can also push notifications of the shop events (like order placed, low stock, return request, order shipped, pending private message etc.) to future (3rd party?) apps running on Android and iOS phones.
I suggest declaring a standard push protocol (with subscription, authentications, etc.) defined by the nopCommerce Team.
The push messages would contain the event's data (based on SignalR (json or I would consider using the MessagePack binary protocol also)
The standard would encourage developers to write apps both for shop customers and operators.