Best Practices When Using Insights & Exports

Insights & Exports shows how students, supporters and admins are using your programs. This article covers how to interpret what you're seeing and turn it into action.

Start at the right level

Organisation and Programs answer different questions, so pick deliberately.

Use Organisation for the health of the whole platform. Growth in accounts, how many programs are live, how often people come back. This is the view for board reporting and renewal conversations.
Use Programs to diagnose. When an organisation-level number moves, the program view tells you which program moved it.
Program Admins work in Programs only. If you manage several programs, check which one is selected before drawing conclusions.

Set the right window before you read anything

Every figure depends on the date range you've chosen.

Match your reporting period. Use Custom to line up with your semester or teaching period rather than reading MTD and comparing it to a term.
Use vs Previous Year for seasonal work. Student engagement is highly seasonal, so a drop between October and December usually reflects the academic calendar rather than a problem with your program. The same period last year tells you far more than last month does.
Watch what you're comparing against. The figure beside each percentage change is the comparison value. A large percentage swing on a small base is normal and rarely meaningful.

Understand what you're counting before you act on it

Every metric card has an information icon explaining what it counts, and reading it takes seconds.

Check the definition before quoting a figure. Chat metrics count conversation between people rather than automated notices, and organisation figures cover your active programs. If a number isn't what you expected, that is usually the explanation.
Some figures will differ from numbers you've seen before, because the dashboard is more specific about what it counts. Chat metrics move the most. Sessions and events are unchanged.
Treat member counts as a snapshot, not a total. Total members and total supporters show who is still joined at the end of your selected period, so the number can go down over time. That is the measure working as intended rather than data going missing.

Watch participation, not just headcount

Growth in member numbers means little if those members aren't doing anything.

Pair new members with active members. A steady inflow alongside flat active members suggests an onboarding problem rather than a growth problem.
Check supporter activity as closely as member activity. Supporters carry the engagement in most programs. Low active supporters is usually an early warning that member engagement is about to follow.
Use return rate as your stickiness measure. A healthy return rate means people are coming back rather than visiting once. It is the single most useful number for judging whether a program has taken hold.

Read the chat sections separately

Chat activity is split by chat type, and the types behave differently.

Program-wide chat views are the metric to watch. Admins often conclude a program-wide chat isn't working because nobody replies, when the views figure shows the content is reaching people. Reach and conversation are different things.
Reactions are engagement too. A member reacting to a message is participating, even if they never post.
Note the one gap. A chat that has been viewed but never messaged contributes no views or reactions, because view tracking is anchored to messages. This affects all chat sections equally.

Use resources data to guide what you publish

Resource views and downloads weren't previously measurable.

Compare unique against total views. High total views with low unique views means a small group returning repeatedly, which is useful content for a few people. The reverse suggests broad but shallow interest.
Retire what nobody opens. A resource with no views after a full semester is taking up space in the library and making the useful material harder to find.

Turn the data into action

Run targeted re-engagement where active members have dropped, rather than broad campaigns to everyone.
Support your supporters. Where supporter activity is low, a workshop or check-in usually moves the number more than messaging members does.
Adjust what you offer based on which session types, events and chat formats are actually being used.
Export when you need the detail. The dashboard answers what happened; the exports under Exports let you work out who and when.
Bring the numbers to your Partner Success Manager when something doesn't sit right. If a figure is genuinely unexpected rather than simply measured differently, they can help you get to the bottom of it.