SAcommunity Helping Communities Through Data

Photo: Volunteer Stathis Avramis - Data Analytics Team

An SAcommunity volunteer project is assisting councils to benefit their communities through data 

SAcommunity is always looking for new initiatives to support the community and provide better services to councils across the state. Many programs that form a major part of SAcommunity's operations and services began their lives as volunteer led projects. Our video series, and many of our training modules, were born as a result of volunteer interest in video editing and content creation, as were many of our social media initiatives, and the entire SAcommunity media team.  

Just over twelve months ago saw the birth another volunteer project that has since grown into an integral part of SAcommunity's services to councils and local governments, through which flows benefits to the wider community.  

This blossoming project is our Data and Statistical Analysis Program. It takes data collected via Google Analytics from SAcommunity's thousands of listings, then collates, analyses, and presents it. The data is then delivered to councils. Providing information on community service demands assists councils to recognise areas of need within their communities, so that these areas may better be addressed. Having this resource can support councils with the allocation of resources, funding and the development of projects which will have the greatest impact where needed most.  

The initial stages of the project began when former volunteer Nirupama Amarakoon introduced the team to Power BI. Although we soon farewelled Niru when she moved into full time employment, the initiative was quickly taken up by volunteer Stathis Avamis, who swiftly grew and expanded the initiative, creating an ongoing program.

Stathis was able to speed up the process of organising and cleansing data in Excel through the use of formulas. In addition, he developed methods of manipulating data using Visual Studio Code, (an Integrated Development Environment), and Python coding. This produced new types of usable data sets that could then be imported directly into Power BI.  

"I was always aware that there was going to be a way to be able to do it efficiently – it was just about finding the right tools.  

"Once you have the program, it is very easy to expand."

Using Power BI, the gathered data can now be organised and presented in a range of interactive data sets for our partnered councils, which are collated into web analytics reports.  

Since developing these methods Stathis has then been able to teach a number of other volunteers how to export and cleanse the data, and to use Power BI to develop web analytics reports, forming the Data and Statistical Analysis team in SAcommunity.  

Through Stathis' efforts and expertise, the project has grown from a small volunteer initiative into our comprehensive Data and Statistical Analysis Program, involving a number of volunteers working at SAcommunity. To date, the project has provided web analytics reports for twenty-nine councils, with more currently in development. These data reports are publicly available on SAcommunity's statistics page here.