Walk This May: How Strava, PowerBI, and 3D Printing Helped Quorum Go Walkabout!

Working in IT can be a pretty sedentary experience and so we jumped at the chance to participate in a fun walking challenge! May is National Walking Month, providing the perfect opportunity to get outdoors and get moving. Not only is walking a great way to exercise, but it has also been shown to have numerous mental health benefits, such as boosting your mood and reducing stress and anxiety levels – very timely as Mental Health Awareness Week is also in May.

We’d like to share how Quorum harnessed the power of PowerBI, Strava, and 3D printing to embark on our latest walkabout adventure! Through the seamless integration of technology, we amalgamated Strava data using PowerBI, creating a leader board. Automation tools like Power Desktop Automate ensured efficient data management, while our SharePoint Intranet site facilitated the dissemination of encouragement, updates, and results across the entire company.

The Challenge

The “Walk This May” challenge was designed to motivate Quorumites to adopt a more active lifestyle by tracking their daily steps and increasing their walking habits. In previous years, our goal was simply to inspire everyone to walk for at least 20 minutes every day and get as many steps in as possible company-wide. However, some of us can be a little competitive and so this year we decided to create a leader board to add in a bit of friendly competition!

The challenge required participants to sign up to Quorum’s Strava group allowing them to seamlessly log their walking activities and contribute to the challenge.

Our PowerBI Dashboard!

We asked our lovely Data team to help us with our challenge and they decided PowerBI was the answer! Microsoft PowerBI is a powerful data visualisation and analytics tool, which we used to collect and aggregate the Strava data from all participating Quorumites. By using Power Automate Desktop and exercise tracking app, Strava, we are able to retrieve our walking data e.g. distance, duration, time of day etc and upload that data to Power BI allowing, us to turn our raw data into meaningful insights.
As mentioned, to foster a sense of friendly competition and employee engagement, a leader board was created using Power BI. The leader board showcased the top-performing employees based on their accumulated distance in kilometres. With regular updates throughout the day, Quorumites could monitor their progress and compare it with their colleagues, spurring everyone on!

To streamline the process of data collection and analysis, we leveraged Power Automate Desktop, an automation tool that once setup enabled the seamless downloading and uploading of Strava data as well as editing and moving the data to a specific location. By doing so, we ensured constant updates to the leader board and statistics, eliminating the need for manual data entry or synchronisation.

Regular updates were scheduled on our internal SharePoint site, serving as a platform for engaging with our employees (for additional tips on how to keep your SharePoint site engaging, click here). Furthermore, we developed customised Power BI applications that seamlessly delivered all the data, ensuring accessibility across various devices at all times.

The Prize

We couldn’t let our participants efforts go unrewarded! So, other than bragging rights, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place walkers all won a beautiful trophy – 3D printed by Quorum’s Development Director, Jamie Prady.

The winners were presented their trophies in an emotional closing ceremony 😉

Number of Participants

Number of Walks

631

Total Distance

2,684

Total Duration

511 Hours

Number of Walks Before Work

128

Number of Walks at Lunchtime

263

Number of Walks After Work

112

Number of Walks at Weekend

128

By embracing a more active lifestyle, our employees not only experienced the physical benefits of walking but also reaped the rewards of improved mental well-being. Through the magic of data visualisation and automation, PowerBI and Power Desktop Automate Desktop brought our walking challenge to life, fostering friendly competition and employee engagement.

As we celebrated the winners with their 3D-printed trophies, we were reminded of the collective spirit and determination that drives our Quorum community.

With each step taken, we have elevated our health, connected with one another, and demonstrated the power of technology to benefit all Quorumites!