Product Update: Charity Automator Data Warehouse now has Calculated Data Tables

Nonprofit organizations across the USA and Canada have long faced challenges in summarizing large volumes of donation data efficiently. Analysts often spend hours running calculations in tools like Power BI — a slow and resource-intensive process, especially with large datasets.

To address this, we introduced a feature that prepares and pre-analyzes key summary data directly inside the Charity Automator Data Warehouse. Instead of building these summaries manually, clients now access clean, analysis-ready tables automatically, making reporting and decision-making faster and easier.

This concept is already proven: we’ve successfully used similar SQL scripts in our other product, Charity Automator Data Flow, to help prepare and transform data for integration. With this update, we’ve brought that approach to the Charity Automator Data Warehouse.

“It’s essentially a SQL script that transforms raw data into structured, client-friendly tables. The goal is to make data more accessible and analysis-ready.” – Tim Roy, Data Analyst at SimpliPhi

What This Unlocks for Nonprofits

With this update, nonprofits can now:

Access pre-aggregated data like total gifts, average gifts, first and last donation dates, and largest gift amount — all automatically calculated.
Eliminate the need to run slow Power BI calculations on millions of rows.
Use this data immediately in dashboards or export for reporting, knowing it’s accurate and complete.
Request additional calculated columns tailored to their reporting needs. For example, we can convert summaries from a standard calendar year to organization's specific fiscal year or customiz what counts as a “gift” with parameters like excluding pledges or filtering by appeal categories.

And perhaps most importantly, it makes data easier to read for everyone. Whether you're a VP of Advancement, a Chief Development Officer, or an executive decision-maker, you can now get a clear view of donor engagement and giving trends with just one click. It helps you keep your finger on the pulse of your organization’s fundraising health.

How It Works

At the core of this feature is a SQL-based script that runs automatically on our infrastructure. It calculates and stores new fields for each constituent in a prepared data table, which is then accessible in the client’s Charity Automator Data Warehouse.

You can expect fields like:

First Gift Date / Amount
Last Gift Date / Amount
Largest Gift / Date
Year-to-Date Giving (Count and Amount)
Lifetime Giving (Count and Amount)

With just one script and client-specific parameters, we serve tailored results across organizations, allowing for both scalability and customization.

Tim Roy shares: “I’m most proud of getting this to work in Microsoft SQL Server — our clients’ system — even though we usually work in MySQL. I had to really think outside the box to make our prepared data scripts integrate seamlessly with Charity Automator’s parameter system. Seeing it run fast and reliably was a proud moment.”

Real-World Example: The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army’s mission extends far beyond data — it’s about compassion, action, and community. Through its Behind the Shield initiative, the organization empowers volunteers across the world to serve in moments of crisis. Whether offering a meal, restocking a food bank, or standing beside a Christmas kettle, every act of service reflects the belief that no one should be alone in difficult times.

We’re honoured to partner with The Salvation Army’s Data Dream Team, whose leadership in data systems helps amplify that mission with precision and purpose.

Before this update, The Salvation Army’s data team spent significant time building custom measures in Power BI, which added complexity, slowed down refresh times, and sometimes required manual SQL queries just to extract summary data for non-visual reports.

Thanks to the Calculated Data Tables now built into the Charity Automator Data Warehouse, their team was able to transition smoothly to their dashboards.

“We really appreciate the partnership with Simpliphi. Your team has been responsive and proactive in addressing our needs. It's so great to see a product evolving in direct response to our feedback, and we're excited to see what's next.” — Armando Deffendi Rossi, Senior Specialist, Development Data Systems and Analytics at The Salvation Army.

How to Activate

If you're a Data Warehouse client, it’s easy to get started:

Step 1: Email our Support Team support@simpliphi.io.
Step 2: We'll schedule a brief call to walk through default settings and discuss the specific fields you'd like included in your summary table.
Step 3: We take care of the rest.

No technical setup on your end — we’ll handle the scripting, filtering, and automation.

Why This Matters: SimpliPhi’s Mission in Action

This feature aligns with our commitment to providing timely, accurate, and complete data for our customers. It simplifies decision-making for nonprofits, automates analysis, and ensures information is ready when teams need it: whether that’s Monday morning, monthly board meetings, or year-end reviews.

By doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes, we’re helping nonprofits spend less time wrangling data and more time driving impact.

Looking Back: Building on the Query API

Together, the Query API and Calculated Data Tables represent a leap forward in making the Data Warehouse a flexible, powerful platform for nonprofit data analysis.

This release builds on the Query API update we introduced earlier. That feature expanded the Data Warehouse by allowing queries from Raiser’s Edge to be transformed into custom SQL tables, unlocking data previously unavailable through the SKY API. – Stefan K., Director of Product Development

Interested in activating Calculated Data Tables for your Data Warehouse?

Contact our support team at support@simpliphi.io, and we’ll help you get started!

Reach out to Joel at joel@simpliphi.io to learn how we can tailor this feature to your specific data and dashboard needs.