Keep queries focused

Once you realize that you can finally ask all the questions you have wanted to, it is easy to start going crazy with your first questions. Often we have found that users will combine 2, 3, or even more questions into a single query. While Teela will do its best to answer, if you ask for conflicting data (i.e. give me the best and worst of X) the results will often be more confusing rather than helpful.

We recommend keeping queries focused on a single question. It can be a crazy question, but keep it focused.

Use DataClips A Lot

DataClips are awesome in so many ways. They are the answer to a series of questions, but they also are a foundation to go even deeper.

Let’s say  you have worked on a query to show you the exact 5 columns you want for an invoice report. It is formatted the way you want (more on that in a second), and it shows you the exact data. Perfect. Save the DataClip.

Now let’s say that now you want to see a slice of that invoice report. Don’t start from scratch, start from the DataClip! Just click the full invoice DC you saved previously, then ask more refining questions so you get the slice of data you want. When you have it, why not save another DataClip?

Charts

Charts are a great way to show off your data, but keep in mind that not all data works in all charts. For instance, a pie chart can only be sliced so many times. If your data is more than 20 records, then we will not turn the data into a pie chart.

For bar and line graphs the max number of records is 200.

Training is key

While Teela works very hard to minimize the  training that new users have to do, we can’t do it all. Most businesses have rules that are not something we can pull out of your database structure and onboarding quizzes. 

If you are asking questions and Teela is either giving bad answers or not giving answers at all, 90%+ of the time it is because there is a term in your query that Teela doesn’t understand. The fix for this often one of two solutions:

• Alias: Have some business jargon that needs to be defined? For instance, do you call your customers “clients” when you write a query? No problem. Admins simply need to go to the Alias page and say that Client refers to the table Customer.
• DOCs: Is your revenue calculated differently than normal? Perhaps your dates are stored in a unique way in the database? If that is the case, then Admins need to make a DOC in the Database Training page. Explain in plain language what you are asking and how Teela can answer it. What is great about training Teela is that you do not have to know the exact column names or even table names to make effective training.
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  For instance, let’s say your company pays out bonuses to their employees based on Net Quarterly Income: Total Revenue - Wages - Rent. If you want to create a DOC around this concept you can simply say “Net Quarterly Income is calculated as Total Revenue - Total Wages - Rent for the last 3 months”.
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  Notice how you didn’t have to state the exact names or even the table. If you do know them, great, but the vast majority of the time Teela can decipher the columns and tables on its own.

How to ask questions

• Give it context. If you ask Teela “Show me the revenue from ABC” where ABC is your top product, it is quite likely that Teela will give you something random, like “no results”. Why? Because Teela doesn’t know what ABC is (i.e. there is no context). Is it a product? A store name? A customer? This question provides no context so Teela will do its best to guess and often that guess is wrong. A much better way to ask the question is “Show me the revenue from product ABC”. That extra word “product” does a lot of heavy work here. It gives Teela a direction to take the query and make more reliable results.
• Be precise. If you say “give me the total revenue of last year” then Teela is going to return a single number. If that is what you want, then great, but if you want a table showing data be sure to use things like “show me all”, “show me the records” or anything that implies that you want a table of data and not just a quick answer.
• Treat Teela like a new employee. One of the things that our most successful users do is to treat Teela like a very smart, but new employee. Just like with a new employee, you get the best results when you are specific with your language. Teela doesn’t know all the vernacular.
• Ask one question at a time. Often users will try to think of a single super question that asks for a ton of information. This commonly will end up with results that aren’t that useful. We recommend starting simple and then refining it with follow up questions. On a similar note, it is best not to combine two questions at the same time.

Advanced Usage

• Create your own vocab. Let’s say that you calculate the revenue of a product as (price * quantity) + tax - discounts. Teela won’t know this of course, so when you ask for revenue you will probably get something like price * quantity. So how do you fix it? Easy.
  
  Create some training with a unique term to let Teela know what you mean.
  
  For instance, you can create a DOC training that says something like this: “If a prompt mentions ‘Item Revenue’ then that means (price * quantity) + tax - discounts”. Now when you ask Teela a question you can simply say something like “show me the item revenue of the product ABC” and Teela will know exactly what you are talking about.