Data Analytics

US Travel Association

U.S. Travel Association (USTA) is the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the travel industry. USTA operates as a 501(c)(6) organization that prioritizes high-impact issues that matter most to their collective membership. USTA identifies the industry’s biggest opportunities and challenges and develops the messages and actions to create growth. They advocate for policies that will advance and elevate their industry on the national level, engaging their members with the tools, research, and resources needed to influence change at state and local levels.

Business Challenge

USTA required assistance with the conversion of their Travel Economic Impact Calculator solution to a Microsoft Power BI Dashboard. The calculator was originally hosted on Azure supported by a 3rd party vendor using custom scripts and coding making it difficult to maintain and enhance. The goal was to convert the State level and City level calculators from their original state to make them more efficient, more effective, easier to maintain, and repeatable.

Solution

Based on USTA requirements, this effort included retrieving the required data from Excel spreadsheet(s), transforming and organizing the data, adding the necessary measures, and rendering a Microsoft Power BI dashboard that duplicated the Look and Feel of the original user interface. First, the Ascendra Team re-engineered the initial data structure to streamline the production of data refreshes. Next, the Team used Microsoft Power BI to automate future refresh of the underlying data into the Power BI dataset. After the data was loaded to the new streamlined dataset, the Team created a complete replacement of the custom HTML visualizations utilizing Microsoft Power BI Dashboards. Finally, the resulting dashboards were deployed to the USTA tenant on the Microsoft Power BI service and were integrated into the USTA website for final presentation.

Benefits

The Microsoft Power BI reports replaced disconnected, confusing, and bloated spreadsheets with integrated, targeted and streamlined workbooks; increased the efficiency of updating the underlying data; and automated the refresh of the customer facing visualizations. The solution also eliminated the need for custom coding of visualizations and provided the client with an initial Microsoft Power BI implementation to serve as a catalyst for future implementations.

Services & Technologies Utilized

Ascendra provided the following consulting services for the USTA Solution:

Project Management
Data Process Engineering
Database Architecture Design and Deployment
Dashboard Design and Development

Software:

Microsoft Power BI Service
Microsoft Power BI Desktop

Let's Talk

Ascendra, Inc.
3900 Jermantown Road, Suite 160
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 571-375-2461 | Fax: 703-991-2495