A new query builder and business intelligence tool has been brought onto the leisure market. Dave Thompson explains more

As the largest leisure provider in Perth and Kinross, Live Active Leisure recognises the value of being able to make intelligent business decisions based on accurate data. So when Gladstone Health and Leisure announced it was launching eyeQ, a powerful new query builder and business intelligence tool, we were very keen to be early adopters.

As Gladstone customers for more than a decade, we use the Plus2 leisure management system at our 15 sites, as well as the Gladstone Management Console (GMC), Join@Home for online members, Connect for online booking, and Learn2 for course management.

Although Plus2 does come with a number of in-built reporting tools, what we particularly liked about eyeQ was the ability it gave us to fully customise our reports and to build quite complicated, customised queries without being computer programmers. Specifically, we saw it being valuable in two key areas: for building and analysing customer information, and for monitoring and improving our financial processes.

In November 2013, we started using an early version of eyeQ, which showed great potential but did not have quite the level of detail we required. Since then, our feedback to Gladstone has helped them to develop a product that closely meets our needs, so being an early adopter has been a great advantage.

One of the biggest strengths of the product is that it pre-segments the data into predefined tables, for example, memberships or sales.We also like how eyeQ integrates with Excel pivot tables, enabling us to slice and dice information according to our needs.And as Excel software is so universal and easy to use, the majority of people who need to see the data understand it.

Another advantage eyeQ has over other reporting tools is its use of a reporting data layer (RDL), which extracts data from the Plus2 database overnight to create tables that eyeQ can query. Because the RDL refreshes itself every 24 hours, we are confident we are working with the latest data, but without the drawbacks of working with live data. Some of the queries we run look at millions of lines of data, which, if you’re working with live data, could slow down the entire system – not much fun if you’re a receptionist trying to book a family in for a swim at the same time.

eyeQ has already had a big impact on the quality of our market research, especially on usage patterns and member retention.This can directly affect business decisions. For example, if a manager runs a report showing a decline in particular classes in a three-month period, they can take action by getting customer feedback and potentially making changes to the class timetable or the way those classes are marketed.

Also, eyeQ has enormous potential as a financial tool: I’m currently using the Custom SQL feature to pull together various strands of financial information into a single mechanism that will eventually write an income return. Dave Thompson, health and safety and estates manager, Live Active