I managed to carve out a bit of time last week to immerse myself into the world of API keys and downloading some apps to start building our dashboards on Power BI.
As mentioned in my last blog (which you can find below this entry), it’s recommended as part of setting up a dashboard to create some goals.
One of the main ways that we communicate with our users is a weekly newsletter it’s where we share news and resources to support organisations and provide opportunities for the VCSE sector to engage with Action Hampshire and each other. It’s become an essential tool for fulfilling our charity purpose “…to work with communities, community organisations and businesses with a social purpose, empowering them to thrive…”. Therefore, I have decided our newsletter analytics will become our initial focus. We want to be able to demonstrate that:
We are providing relevant and engaging content to our subscribers.
This will be measured by our open rate, and we will use click through rates to inform us of what content is useful and what isn’t.
We are extending our reach and supporting VCSE organisations that are just starting out or haven’t yet heard of us.
This will be measured by the number of subscribers that join each week, setting ourselves a target of 100 new subscribers by the end of the year.
We use Mailchimp as our email marketing tool, so I looked at downloading the Mailchimp app for Power BI and how to go about connecting our data. The free version of the app is quite limited, but it gave me a chance to play around with some real data and get a feel for some of the functions – this is a working progress!! To connect our Mailchimp account with the app it required entering an API key. If (like me) you didn’t know what this is, it’s an Application Programming Interface – a code used to identify and authenticate requests associated with an application or a user. Many of the apps available to download will need an API key. For Mailchimp this was simple to find – follow this link for instructions. For other apps it can be more complicated (requires a few additional steps) and you may need to have a bit of search online for some guidance.
Back to the Mailchimp app…
Ultimately the limitations of the free version don’t give an accurate overview, and we don’t yet want to commit to a subscription for the upgrade. I will be exploring the option of uploading our own excel datasets which can be downloaded from Mailchimp directly – unfortunately this will become a more manual process, but potentially worthwhile.
Perhaps jumping ahead a little, but excited by the progress I had made, I also downloaded the Power BI apps for Facebook and Twitter. Facebook also required an API key which can be found by following these instructions: You have to log on to Facebook (with any valid account), go to Account -> Application settings -> Developer -> Set up new application (button at the top right). After creating application, you will see the key and secret at application settings page.
The Twitter app was different again and as of yet, I have struggled to connect up our data – if you have any tips, please feel free to share!
Some recommendations…
- Block out some time and get stuck in!
- After creating your first goal and thinking about how you are going to measure it – identify what dataset will give you the answers. Are you using a tool that there’s already an app ready for you to download* (you can search for apps once you’ve logged into your Power BI account) or do you have an excel spreadsheet with your data that can be uploaded?
- Reach out to your networks for support! I have recently joined the below Facebook group and received a response from a fellow group member within hours of posting my question.
Link to Facebook group
*For most apps you’ll need a pro Power BI account. We are currently trying it out with a free 60-day trial period and then we’ll decide whether we’ll take the plunge and commit to a subscription.
Over to you…
Are you using Power BI?
Have you got any tips to pass on? Please share by emailing me – helena.kondziela@actionhampshire.org
You can follow our journey using: #AH_PowerBI
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16 June
It’s somehow 2pm and I have finally stopped procrastinating (albeit productive procrastinating) and pressed ‘get started with Power BI’.
Every description I have read up until now I’ve become more confused as to all the various elements of Power BI. This often puts me back to the starting point where I am questioning what it is and how to go about using it. However today I have found yet another description and this one has given me some clarity and a step closer to making some progress…
Microsoft Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights.
Action Hampshire are looking at this type of tool because we want to be able to see the impact of all our comms channels (website, newsletters and socials) in one place. We want to have a better understanding of what is working, how to better reach our users and increase our engagement across the VCSE sector and beyond!
I have decided to start writing a blog to help record my journey with learning how to setup and use Power BI and perhaps help others too, so it’s a little less scary and maybe save you a bit of time!
So, to make that first step here’s what I would recommend…
- Log in and download Power BI desktop by following this link (scroll to about half way down)
- Watch this 30 min ‘Dashboard for beginners’ video (via this link) on LinkedIn Learning
(LinkedIn Learning – you can sign up for a month’s free trial) - Create clear goal(s) – why are you embarking on this adventure?
Some of the goals I am considering include: increasing membership subscribers / increasing newsletter sign ups / increasing our reach and engagement / increasing traffic to our website
That’s as far as I have got for a hot Friday afternoon!
Over to you!…
Are you using Power BI? Have you got any tips to share? Please share by emailing me – helena.kondziela@actionhampshire.org
You can follow our journey using: #AH_PowerBI
