Hey everyone! 👋
A customer recently asked how to find out how many new active users joined their community after a big event — in this case, a conference where they promoted their community heavily. Here’s the exact method we used. 💡
🧾 Step 1: Export “Active Users” Data Before and After the Event
Go to Analytics and create a new Table chart for Active Users:
change the group by from User Role Type (default) to "User name"
Save the dashboard the chart is in.
Set your date range to cover the period before the event — for example, everything up to June 30, 2025.
Click Export to download the results (CSV or Excel).
Update the same chart’s time range to cover the after period (for example, July 1–August 31, 2025).
📊 Step 2: Compare “Before” and “After” Lists in Excel
Now, we want to identify which usernames appear after the event that did not appear before.
- Open both files in Excel.
- Rename your tabs to:
(or whatever you want)
- In
UsersAfter, add a new column called NewUserFlag in column B. =IF(COUNTIF(UsersBefore!A:A, A2)=0, 1, 0)- This marks users as 1 if they’re new (not seen before), and 0 if they already existed.
- Copy the formula down to the end of your list.
📈 Step 3: Add 'em up
Simply sum up the new logins from the new helper column:
=SUM(C:C)
This gives you the total count of new active users after the event — i.e., the number of people who became active for the first time following your promotion 🎉
🪄 Bonus Tip
If you repeat this after future campaigns, you can just:
- Re-export the same chart for each date range,
- Paste the new data into the same workbook,
- Watch your dashboard update automatically!
✅ Outcome
You’ll end up with:
- A clean Excel dashboard showing new active users gained after your event
- A reusable workflow that combines Vanilla Analytics exports and Excel formulas
- Instant insights into how well your event or campaign drove community engagement 💥
