PERFORM Reports is an enterprise web application that turns public datasets into actionable trend reports to aid those looking to make data-informed decisions for their organizations, communities, or cities.
Implementing Data-Driven Innovation
Since its founding, the team at Independent Variable has been working to help practitioners and policymakers alike better use data to drive social impact and social innovation. In our earliest days, this effort started with Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint; in recent years, it has involved the creation of our own enterprise case management systems and analytics dashboards.
No matter the medium, however, a few consistent challenges remain:
- With limited budgets and heavy workloads, many people simply don’t have the bandwidth to produce regular data reports for analysis. While dashboards certainly help, the work to transfer (or recreate) visuals from dashboard to presentation template can still be time consuming.
- Not every organization has people on staff trained to source and analyze public datasets. In fact, for many organizations, this would make very little sense. As such, the practice of public data analysis is often outsourced to third-party consulting firms or dependent on the ingenuity of single staff members; both of which can carry long-term sustainability concerns.
- Public data is often equal parts complicated and messy. This allows for a lot of variation in the ways in which it is interpreted or analyzed. Comparing notes and setting strategy across multiple organizations can be tough.
The Design of PERFORM Reports
While Independent Variable facilitates numerous client trainings for design thinking, we also continuously examine our own products and processes through a human-centered design lens in hopes of further reducing any barriers to use.
Out of this effort, PERFORM Reports was born, with a specific focus on making public data more consumable for frontline practitioners.
PERFORM Reports aims to:
- Reduce the time needed to produce data reports on critical trends
- Reduce the training and expertise needed to manipulate dashboards or public datasets
- Provide a standard set of data reports to allow for cross-organizational strategy and collaboration
- Put actionable data in the hands of any interested citizen
Customizable Queries
To start, the application allows users to select a public dataset and a variety of variables for consideration. While the application will ultimately include multiple datasets and reports, at launch it was designed to produce a “Philadelphia Shootings Report” to aid in the implementation of local community violence intervention (CVI) efforts. Users are allowed to select a date range, the “periodicity” of the data report (i.e. weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly), as well as a zip code or neighborhood of interest.
Standardized Trend Reports
After setting their parameters, a user can push the “generate report” button to produce a standardized trend report. This report includes a snapshot of overall key performance indicators, geographic analysis, as well as count and percentage based charts of key variables of interest. This allows a user to examine the aggregate impact of phenomena (e.g., there were a total of five women victimized by gun violence in February) as well as proportionate trends (e.g., women accounted for 25% of all victims of gun violence in February–a much greater percentage than in January).
These reports can be viewed within the application or downloaded to PowerPoint for continued interpretation and analysis.
Relevant News Stories
There is only so much we can learn from data points in a graph. For extra context, PERFORM Reports displays links to selected news stories relevant to a user’s query. Hyperlinks allow users to explore these news stories for any additional information that may help to inform their strategy.
Accompanying Data Dashboards
Where possible, PERFORM Reports includes links to data analytics dashboards where users can take a deeper dive into any trends uncovered by their reports. The first dashboard included is a Philadelphia Shootings Dashboard designed by Independent Variable, where users can conduct deeper geographic analysis, explore the interaction between multiple variables, and conduct dynamic comparisons of trends to examine the efficacy of any potential anti-violence or public safety interventions.
Explore PERFORM Reports and Help Spread the Mission
PERFORM Reports marks a major step forward in Independent Variable’s mission to provide open data tools to those working on the frontlines of some of society’s toughest issues.
Check out PERORM Reports below. If you are interested in adding a dataset or report for your organization, community, or city, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Independent Variable team to discuss possibilities!