A single page that answers the question every board asks at every meeting: "How alive is our society right now?" Insights pulls the engagement and use numbers out of every enabled module — active members, events held, volunteer hours, donations raised, newsletters published — and shows them all on one screen across whatever time window you pick.
This is admin/board-only. Members never see it. Disabled modules are hidden, not greyed out — if you've turned off the Store module in SocietyPress → Settings → Modules, the Insights page acts as if the Store doesn't exist.
What you can do
- See every active module's headline number on one page.
- Compare any two periods by switching the time window — last 30 days, last 90, last 365, this fiscal year, last fiscal year.
- Spot trends without reading anything: each card has a tiny line chart (a "sparkline") showing how the number moved across the window.
- Bring meaningful numbers to a board meeting without exporting a single CSV.
How to open Insights
SocietyPress → Insights in the left sidebar. That's it.
If you don't see the menu item, the user account you're logged into doesn't have the Reports access area. Site administrators always do. To grant it to another volunteer (a board treasurer, for example), open their user record under SocietyPress → User Access, check Reports, and save.
How to read the page
Each card shows four things:
- The module name at the top, with its dashboard icon.
- A big number — the headline metric for the chosen time window.
- A short label under the number telling you what it counts.
- A sparkline along the bottom — a line chart compressed to a thumbnail. Up-and-to-the-right is good; flat is "no activity"; a recent dip means whatever you tried last quarter slowed down.
The numbers are honest. If your sp_access_log was pruned to 90 days for privacy, asking for "last 365 days" of active members shows what's actually in the log, not a fabricated longer history. If donations were $0 in the chosen window, the card shows $0.
How to change the time window
Top-left dropdown labeled Time window. Pick one:
- Last 30 days — the rolling-month view. Good for "what changed since our last board meeting."
- Last 90 days — the default. Good for "are we trending up or down this quarter?"
- Last 365 days — the rolling-year view. Good for "how does this year compare to last year?"
- This fiscal year — January 1 to today, or whatever fiscal-year-start month you set under SocietyPress → Settings → Membership. Good for board-meeting reports.
- Last fiscal year — the same window, one year earlier. Good for year-over-year comparisons.
The window applies to every card on the page at once. There's no per-card override and there doesn't need to be.
Which numbers does each module show
| Module | Headline number | |---|---| | Members | Active members (anyone who logged into the site in the window) | | Events | Events held | | Library | Catalog items added | | Newsletters | Issues published | | Resources | Resources added | | Governance | Volunteer hours logged | | Store | Orders placed | | Records | Records added | | Donations | Total raised | | Blast Email | Blasts sent | | Gallery | Photos uploaded | | Help Requests | Research help requests | | Documents | Documents uploaded | | Voting | Ballots opened | | Lineage | Applications received | | Research Services | Cases opened |
If a module is disabled, its row doesn't appear.
If something looks wrong
Active Members shows zero, but I know members are using the site. Two things to check. First, is the URL access log running? It writes a row every time a logged-in member loads a page, and after a fresh install it can be empty for a few days while real traffic accrues. Second, what's the access-log retention? SocietyPress → Settings → Privacy has a "URL Log Retention Days" setting. If it's set to 30 and you're asking for 365 days, the older data simply isn't there.
This fiscal year is empty. Your fiscal-year-start month under SocietyPress → Settings → Membership may be set wrong. Many genealogy societies run a July-to-June fiscal year; the default is January. Check the setting, save, refresh Insights.
A module I have enabled isn't showing up. Three possibilities, in order. (1) The module's settings switch under SocietyPress → Settings → Modules is actually off. (2) The module's database tables didn't install correctly — visit Plugins → Installed Plugins, deactivate SocietyPress, reactivate it, and the missing tables get created. (3) You're viewing as a non-admin who has access to that module but not Reports — log in as a full administrator to confirm.
Donations total looks too low. Insights only counts donations where the status is recorded (manual cash/check entry), paid (Stripe one-time), or subscription_active (recurring). Failed, pending, cancelled, and refunded donations are excluded. If you see $0 but you know money came in, check SocietyPress → Donations for any rows still in pending — usually a Stripe webhook didn't deliver and the donation needs a manual status bump.
The numbers feel slow to load. This is rare on a typical society's data, but big sites with hundreds of thousands of records can feel a pause. The page does its own queries on every load (no cache yet). If you hit a real slowdown, file an issue and we'll add a transient cache.
Related guides
- Members — where the Active Members count comes from
- Donations — the status-filter logic in the Donations card
- Governance — how Volunteer Hours are logged in the first place