I’ve never met a more passionate group of fisherman than the members of Kedgwick Salmon Club. These folks come from all over North America to a remote camp in New Brunswick, Canada, and stand in a freezing river! Fun right?! Well, they’d tell you it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to reel in that magnificent Atlantic Salmon.
Finding A Way To Visualize The Catch Statistics
The club documents their daily catch statistics creating a healthy yet fierce competition between members. When The Keller Creative took on the redesign and development of the club’s WordPress website, the statistics page was one of our biggest obstacles. We needed a way for the club admins to easily input the data on a daily basis and then be able to visualize the statistics in an organized manner.
The Best WordPress Table Plugins
We first researched popular data and statistics management tools for WordPress. Some of the ones considered where:
wpDataTables
After careful consideration we decided to move forward with wpDataTables. We were particularly impressed with the ability to import Excel files and display the information as graphic charts. The price is reasonable considering you are receiving lifetime updates. The installation and learning curve was fairly simple. They provide lots of documentation and tutorial videos.
Streamlined Input Process
Up to this point the club had been using Excel files to record their daily stats. They would then copy and paste the Excel rows into their CMS visual builder. This was a time consuming method and yielded only static HTML tables. In order to streamline the process, we predefined all the daily statistics within the wpDataTables plugin. Now when the daily stats are recorded, the club manager inputs them directly into the website using a simple dialog box.
Beautiful Responsive Charts
It’s difficult to visualize data solely as numbers in rows. To overcome this, we leveraged the advanced chart building features within the plugin. Three charts where defined and styled directly within the back-end settings. The data is pulled dynamically from the inputted catch statistic and can be filtered in real time on the web page.
Continued Growth
As more data is inputted, further analysis can be done. Averages and sums of months and years will be available for display in the future. We look forward to helping Kedgwick Salmon Club continue to use their website for more than just a marketing tool!