{"id":139,"date":"2023-03-08T15:11:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T15:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drunk.support\/?p=139"},"modified":"2024-03-19T01:30:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T01:30:19","slug":"edd-analytics-chatgpt-dashboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drunk.support\/edd-analytics-chatgpt-dashboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating an analytics dashboard for Easy Digital Downloads using AppSmith and ChatGPT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We use Easy Digital Downloads<\/a> to sell WP Fusion<\/a>, and while it’s been good to us over the years, the reports leave a lot to be desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
EDD’s built in reports have gotten better with v3.0 but are still pretty basic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To get better insights into churn, MRR, and active customers growth, I’d been using ProfitWell<\/a>, which does a nice job, but has a few issues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. No PayPal support: <\/strong>It’s integrated directly with Stripe (not EDD). About 20% of our revenue comes from PayPal, so that data is missing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Discounts:<\/strong> When we offer discounts (for example on Black Friday), EDD charges in Stripe this as a one-off payment for the discounted price, with a free trial for a year, and then the regular subscription begins. This means that new customers who sign up with a discount count as “trials” and don’t count towards MRR.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Upgrades:<\/strong> When EDD processes an upgrade (for example from Plus to Professional<\/a>), it cancels the customer’s current subscription, charges a pro-rated upgrade fee as a one-off, and then creates a new trialing subscription until the customer’s scheduled renewal date. In ProfitWell this counts as both a churned subscription and a trial\u2014 neither of which are true.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    So, while we can spot some trends in ProfitWell, it’s far from accurate, especially with predicting recurring revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For example look at the active customers count difference between ProfitWell and EDD\u2014 1,137 in ProfitWell vs 2,154 in EDD<\/strong>. Not even close, yikes! \ud83d\ude2c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/a>
    ProfitWell shows 1,137 active customers for February 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"
    But in Easy Digital Downloads, we have 2,154 active customers \ud83d\ude26. Not even close!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    In search of a solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Every year, I publish a Year in Review for WP Fusion<\/a> where we go through a bunch of metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is a fun way to “build in public”, and it’s also a good chance to spend some time reviewing everything internally, to try and identify weaknesses, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In years prior, I’d done all of this “by hand”\u2014 exporting the EDD order data as .csvs, and between a few different spreadsheet apps and having to re-learn what a pivot table is, I’d come up with some pretty charts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Of course this is very time consuming, and the data quickly gets stale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bringing in help \ud83e\udd16<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    This year I was messing around with ChatGPT and thought, hey, maybe it can help me with some of these reports. And, surprise, surprise, it turned out to be very helpful! \ud83e\udd29<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Very helpful!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Great, I’ve got a way to query the data, now just how to display it…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the past I’ve worked with Klipfolio, and I briefly experimented with their new PowerMetrics<\/a> tool, but I didn’t really love the UI, or the way that each query needed to be configured with its own connection to our database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Appsmith<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    I ended up using Appsmith<\/a>, which I like for a few reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n