Octopus Legacy - 173tech

Data Product

66 hours of manual work saved for every dashboard update

Objective

Automate data reporting into scalable Metabase dashboards.

Obstacle

Complex user permissions and the need for secure, charity-specific access.

Outcome

Live, self-serve dashboards integrated seamlessly into WordPress and email.

Background

Octopus Legacy provides after-life services including wills, lasting power of attorney, life insurance, and probate. A core part of their business is partnering with charities to run legacy donation campaigns.

Despite significant advertising spend, charities often lacked clear visibility into when and how much funding was being generated, making it difficult to forecast income or optimise campaigns.

To bridge this gap, Octopus Legacy first turned to Looker Studio. But the approach quickly became unsustainable, with over 2,000 dashboards requiring manual updates, maintaining and improving reporting was inefficient, inconsistent, and prone to error.

Challenges

Scalability: Updating and maintaining 2,000 Looker Studio dashboards required manual replication, wasting hours of team time and leaving no single source of truth. Each update took more than 66 hours of manual work.

Functionality: Existing dashboards lacked interactive elements and reliability, limiting actionable insights for charities. They lacked the ability to restrict access, preventing charities from viewing only their own data securely.

Solution

Iterative Design: We initially explored a “light-touch” option, swapping the visualisation tool. After a comprehensive review, we identified Metabase as the most cost-effective and scalable BI tool. We consolidated reporting into a single master dashboard, applying filters and permissions so each charity could only access its own insights.

Data Stack: With an MVP completed, we then set up a full data stack which will allowed Octopus Legacy to hire an internal analyst for day-to-day business questions.

Impact

Migration: As part of the move to Metabase, we resolved key backend issues that had caused delays in data processing and inconsistencies in reporting. By streamlining performance and ensuring data accuracy, charities and stakeholders gained faster, more reliable access to insights, strengthening both decision-making and trust in the system.

Metabase Dashboards: Moving to Metabase Pro transformed Octopus Legacy’s reporting. What once required extensive manual updates became fully scalable and easy to maintain. We also enhanced functionality by introducing interactive maps, giving charities a more dynamic and intuitive way to explore their geographic data.