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Use caseUC0010

Answer a shop's sales questions from its order records

Simple questions about customers and sales wait in a queue for the one person who can query the database. This app takes the question in plain English, writes the query, shows it beside the answer, and never changes the data.

For the data teamCross-domain · Retail

Why it matters

Today's manual process, and the same job with the app

A data team at a shop, answering colleagues' questions about customers and orders by writing database queries.

✕Today's manual process

1A question arrives as a message: how many customers, which region, what was the total last quarter.
2It waits in a queue for the one person who writes database queries, and comes back a day later.
3The answer is a bare number with no query attached, so the next person asks the same question again.
4One wrong query means a confident, wrong number that nobody can check.
Every question waits for one person

✓With the app

1Ask in plain English, straight into the app, with no ticket and no queue.
2The query is written in seconds, and checked so it can only read the data, never change it.
3The rows come back with the query beside them, ready to check, correct and reuse.
4A wrong query is visible on the screen, so a person can catch it before the number is used.
Answers in seconds, with the query shown

See it work

One real case, read by the app, step by step

A manager asks which five customers placed the most orders in 2024. Thackeray Metals PLC comes out on top, with the query shown beside the list.

Answer a shop's sales questions from its order recordsReference appBuilt to be shaped to your process
  1. 1The question typed in plain English.
  2. 2The query it wrote shown in full, so a person can check it.
  3. 3Checked before it runs one query that only reads the data, never changes it.
  4. 4The answer the top five customers by 2024 orders, Thackeray Metals PLC first.
  5. 5Not in the records asked for email addresses, it says it cannot answer instead of guessing.

For engineers

How it is built, and how we measured it

All fourteen steps of the build are written up, from the business case to running it in your own environment.

Kit overview →
16 of 20questions answered exactly rightmeasured in 01 Business case →
25 of 25attempts to change the data blocked
2.7 secondstypical wait for an answermeasured in 01 Business case →
0.28¢to answer all 20 questionsmeasured in 07 Unit cost →

The build, step by step

14 steps

Make it yours

What you see is a reference app. We shape it to how you work.

Every part of it is built to change, and none of it means starting over.

Your rulesWhich tables and columns each team may ask about, and what stays off limits.
Your recordsYour own customer, order and product tables, opened read only.
Your systemsConnected to your own database, with answers passed to the reports you already use.
Your screensYour own sample questions, column names and layout, in the words your managers use.

Want this for your team?

Talk to us

We can run this on your own database, with your own tables and questions, inside your environment.

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