This is a companion blog post to the online presentation “Making Better Decisions with Real-Time Analytics Using the Wild Apricot Reports Manager” at the PersoniFest: A Virtual Experience. The presentation will be made available April 23, at 12:30pm CDT / 1:30 pm EDT. NewPath Consulting will be also hosting a virtual watch party by Zoom alongside this presentation. See details on how to join the watch party here,
To enter the special prize giveaway, see the end of this post for a link!
The Wild Apricot Reports Manager (aka WARM) is NewPath Consulting’s solution to extending Wild Apricot’s reporting functionality. All Wild Apricot administrators can create “dashboards” to gauge goals, performance metrics and or even report across a network of Wild Apricot sites. Best of all the solution is completely free!
WARM is powered by Google Data Studio, a free business reporting and visualization solution that helps administrators securely summarize, transform and visualize Wild Apricot data and turn data into actionable information. The Wild Apricot Reports Manager can also offer a high degree of visibility across a network of Wild Apricot chapter or club sites. With WARM you can see how your organization or network is growing as well as understand how data can help to make better decisions.
This video and text walkthrough will demonstrate how quickly you can build your first report with Wild Apricot Reports Manager.
Step 1. Go to Google Data Studio.
You may need to login to your Google account. If you do not have a Google account you can sign up for one for free. All the reports and data sources will be created with this account.
Step 2. Switch to your Wild Apricot administrative dashboard to create an authorized application. This will enable Google Data Studio to read information from your Wild Apricot database. The WARM connector uses the Wild Apricot API.
Step 3. Now copy and paste the API key from the authorized application you created in Step 2 into the API key in the WARM configuration. This is a secret key that you should not share with anyone.
Step 4. You will now see the Contacts dimensions. You may find some of these fields familiar from your Contacts database.
Step 5. After a few seconds or minutes, depending on the size of your contact database you will see your report template. This report can be shared for read or edit access like any Google Doc. You can also schedule a snapshot of this data to be delivered in PDF format. This is the best way to create snapshots of your membership data automatically.
Step 6. Schedule the email delivery.
Win a copy of “Hands On With Google Data Studio” or Bose QC20 headphones