A server computing system provides a web application graphical user interface (GUI) that has a first pane and a second pane. The first pane includes data items of the web application. When a user selects multiple data items in the first pane, the second pane identifies the actions that are available for the data items that are selected in the first pane. When an action is selected in the second pane, the data items in the first pane are modified in response to the selection without a web browser refreshing or reloading a corresponding web page. The server computing system receives a user request for additional information for a data item in the first pane and provides the additional information in a third pane that is together with the first pane in the GUI without the web browser refreshing or reloading the corresponding web page.