Transaction Activity

The Transaction Activity dashboard is a combination of widgets: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), focused metric tables and graphic displays of your data.  The data displayed on the dashboard is intended to give you actionable insights into the type of activity that drives your business, when it occurs at each location, the volumes, frequencies and trends.  This can be used for budget and labor planning, as well as to make operational decisions such as accepted payment types and gift card marketing.

It is important to note that the data considered begins with the date on the heading panel of the dashboard, under Earliest Transaction Date.  This means that your trends and filtered data will start with the transactions on this date.

Note that if your business includes purchasing used goods, the Buy Back - Used transaction type count includes activity with value given to customers, automatic sends, store transfers and reversal transactions - this is due to the multiple system processes that utilize this transaction type.

You will see a link to this document in the heading of the dashboard, click on Dashboard Help to access the document.

KPIs

At the top of the dashboard, a selection of KPIs appear - these are your main activity types, including sales, sends & receives, buy back - used and loyalty transactions. The filters to the right of the dashboard are used to narrow the focus of the KPIs, by date, location and transaction type. You can for example, focus on all the types of sale transactions - or on a single type of sale. The KPIs will give you the overall volume of activity - further down the dashboard you will see how this volume is spread over time and how it trends.

Note that there are info buttons on each KPI, which you will find by hovering in the top right of the KPI box - these offer a brief description of the metric:

If your operations include buy back of used goods, you will see data related to Buy Back.  Note that the Buy Back - Used KPI has a drop down option that will show you additional details about that activity.  A Buy Back - Used transaction can include activity where the customer received value for used merchandise, a store transfer occurred, and automatic transfer of inventory occurred, or a reversal occurred. The drop down reflects the allocation of this activity by category.  Remember that a unique transaction can include multiple types of buy back activity, so the individual component metrics will sometimes exceed 100% of the total - for example, a transaction can include value to the customer and an automatic transfer of inventory, each will be counted in the individual categories and will account for 1 single total transaction.

Next you will see a calendar that is highlighted for volume levels: lowest, mid-range and highest. The calendar is an annual view, starting with the beginning date of the range you select in the filters; it will be highlighted for activity during the date range and other filters that you select.  Here you will see your trends by weekday and month - some might be exactly as you expect, perhaps sales volumes on weekends - while others might provide insight that you did not expect.  Watch for trends that inform you about how to allocate labor, and where you might have marketing opportunities to drive more sales, or encourage other behavior changes.

You will also see a table of transaction types and their volumes, as filtered. This table includes transactions, quantity and revenue for each transaction type and can be used to understand volumes of transactions and counts within those transactions.  Look here to determine which types warrant further analysis.  If you set the Transaction Type filter to include all, this is a good place to see an overall view of the types of activity for the date and locations that you select.

You can interact with this pivot table by adding or removing fields that will help your analysis. By right clicking on a header or row, you will see a list of fields that can be added to the pivot table. Simply click on them to add or remove. 

Graphic Displays

A trend line for transactions by hour displays your activity over the course of the day, in the aggregate.  See here your slowest, and busiest times of the day for specific activity - and compare locations with each other.  This is useful for labor allocations in your financial budgets as well as how that labor gets planned at your locations - think about staffing, break times, and task coverage, and how you can best allocate your resources to optimize them. You might find that locations are busier at different times of the day, and shifting your staff schedules might better support your customers. You might find that during particular times of the year sales activity shifts, whether it be due to weather, seasonality of your business or other factors - and adjusting the operating hours of your locations could help the bottom line.

A column chart will show you similar trends as the line graph, separated by types of transaction.  Again you will see the trend by hour, and can isolate specific locations using the filters.  You'll see specific types of activity stacked by percentage here and can, for example, analyze the best staffing models for the type of activity, or determine how your accepted types of payment are transacted.  If your store operations include sending and receiving activity during normal business hours, you can see how that activity has been trending and make adjustments to optimize the talent in your locations.

Graphics will often tell a story about your business or operations that is not obvious when looking only at metrics.  Look for trends in the data, where the different metrics intersect, and which metrics seem to impact the others.  You can make more informed decisions about your business when you combine what your data is telling you with the knowledge you have about influencing factors.

Focused Metrics

The first chart will give you the metrics by hour & location for each type of transaction and each location in your filters. This data is represented in the graphics above, and might offer a different perspective when you see the raw numbers.

The second chart will give you a view of total transactions by hour and location, again per the filtered values. This aggregate view is useful when you have selected multiple types of transactions, sales for example, and want to see the total amount instead of separated by type.

You are able to compare locations with each other here, and understand exactly how many transactions of each type occur throughout the day. This data can be very useful in planning your annual budgets and staff scheduling.  Also use this when considering a new location, where the demographics are similar to an existing location - and when a location has perhaps exceeded or fallen below expectations.

If you hover to the right of the field names, you will see an arrow that allows an ascending/descending sort. You can export the data in these tables, to work with it outside of the dashboard.  Do this by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the widget, choose Download and export an image or file.  The recommended file type for a spreadsheet is CSV.