How to construct Questions?
Ask Zia can understand the intent in your questions. It can resolve ambiguity and generate the best possible insights for your questions. The questions you construct can be one of the following types.
Your question can be in a structured language e.g.,
Show me the sales grouped by country for the year 2018
Your question can be in an unstructured fragment phrase e.g.,
India sales in 2019
What is the last year profit?
Your question states explicit information in your data. e.g., Let's say you have
Sales
and
Region
columns in your dataset. The below question will get the total sales for each region.
Get me the sales across the regions
Your question contains implicit information. Ask Zia will identify the terms such as
monthly, yearly, daily, quarterly.
e.g., for the below question, Zia will recognize the term
Monthly,
identified a date column in your data set and plots the sales across months.
Monthly Sales
Your question can contain a value from a column. In this case,
West
is a value in the column
Region
. Ask Zia will identify this and excludes the data for the west region.
Get me sales across regions except west
You can ask for metrics across tables in your dataset. Ask Zia will interpret it based on how you have joined the tables using
Lookup column
. In this example, the column Sales is from the Sales table and the column Targeted Sales is from Regional Target table.
sales vs target by region
You can ask a metric from a formula column available in your dataset.
Your question can contain a typographical error. Ask Zia can interpret questions with incomplete, incorrect words. In this case, the term 'salse' will be matched with sales
Show me the salse by salesperson
What can be achieved in Ask Zia?
Ask Zia supports creating the following types of queries.
Ask for a Metric
You can ask for a single metric or multiple metrics in a question like sales, my top salesman, what is the most sold product, etc.,
You can ask for a single metric in your question. The following question will get the
total profit
for last year as a Numeric KPI widget.
What is the last year profit?
You can ask for multiple metrics in a question. The below question gets
Total Sales
and
Total Profit
as a pie chart.
Sales vs profit
Apply Summary Functions
Zoho Analytics provides a wide range of summary functions like Sum, Count, Average, Running Total etc., Ask Zia will try to apply the best possible function over your column. You can choose to change them in your question.
You can choose the apply the
supported summary functions
over a metric column by explicitly specifying them in your question. The below example applies count over the sales column and plots it across months.
what is the number of orders we have every month?
Ask Zia can also apply
advanced summary functions
. The below question applies the advanced summary function
Running Total
over the
Sales
column and calculates it across the quarters.
show me the running total of sales.
Group the Metric Column
You can group the metric column using phrases like sales by /group by / categorized by / across / wise ... This following types of groupings are supported.
Single Metric by a Single Dimension
In this example, the
Sales
column is grouped into months by the
Date
column.
monthly sales
Single Metric by Multiple Dimensions
In this example, the
Sales
column is grouped by the
Date
and the
Region
columns.
what is my sales across the regions every month?
Multiple Metrics by a Single Dimension
In this example, the
Sales
and the
Profit
columns are grouped by the
Date
column.
Profit and sales across months
Multiple Metrics by Multiple Dimension
In this example, the
Sales
and the
Profit
columns are grouped by the
Date
and the
Region
columns.
Sales and profit across months for each region
Apply Filter Criteria
You can apply single criteria or multiple criteria of filters in a question. The following are the supported filter criteria.
Plain Text
You can choose to include or exclude a value in a text column. In below example, we've filtered
Sales
where the
Region
is
West
.
Show me the sales across months where the region is west
Numeric
You can filter a numeric column by a range or by using special criteria such as
greater than 10, < 10, most, highest, lowest...
The below question filters the
Deal Size
greater than 12k.
Salesperson by win rate and won amount where the deal size >12k
Slice by Range
You can slice data by range using special criteria like
Top 10, Bottom 5, Highest, lowest, most, recent.
In this example, we have filtered top 10 salespersons.
My top 10 salespersons by win rate
Exact Dates
You can filter data for a specific date such as 2019, March 2018, 12/3/2019...
In this example, we've filtered the tickets escalated on 17th of March 2018.
Escalated tickets on 17 march 2018
Date ranges
You can filter data for a specific date range. In this example, the
Revenue
for a specific period i.e., from 3rd March 2018 to 3rd September 2018 is filtered.
Show me the revenue by salespersons from 3rd Mar 2018 to 3rd Sept 2018
Relative Dates -
You can filter data for a relative period such as
This Month, Last Quarter, Today...
In this example, the
Revenue
for the period of
last 1 year
is filtered.
Show me the revenue across months for the last year
Filter Negation -
You can exclude a set of data from the report using the filter negation such as
exclude, except, ignore, without
... In this example, we've excluded the west region sales
.
Sales across regions except west
Sort Data
You can choose to sort the report either by the metric column or by columns to group the metric. In this example, the report is sorted based on the Y-Axis column
Revenue
.
Revenue by Salespersons sort by Revenue
Keywords for Ask Zia
The following is the list of keywords that Ask Zia can interpret and create appropriate insights.
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Summary Options
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Functions
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Keywords
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Summary
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sum, total, tot
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Minimum
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minimum, min
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Maximum
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maximum, max, highest, high
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Count
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count, number, no, total number, distinct count, unique, unique count
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Others
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standard deviation, std dev, variance
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Advanced Summary Options
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Functions
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Keywords
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Running Total
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running total, running tot., running sum
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Percentage of
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percentage, total percentage, %, percent, percentage of total, total %, % of total, pct of total, % of sum, sum percentage, sum pct, contribution, contribution of total
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Difference From
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difference, difference from, diff, growth
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% of Difference From
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% of difference, pct of difference, difference %, % diff, difference percentage, difference in percentage,
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% of Previous Value
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percentage of previous, % of previous, pct of previous, prev %, previous value %
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Group by Options |
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Functions
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Keywords
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Numeric
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actual, range, as range, dimension, as dimension
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Date-Actual
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year, yearly, year over year, yoy, absyear
quarter, quarterly, quarter over quarter, qoq, absquarter
month, monthly, month over month, mom, month and year, absmonth
week, weekly, week over week, wow, week and year, absweek
day, daily, day over day, absday
date, hour, hourly, minute, second
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Date-Seasonal
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seasonal day, seasonal month, seasonal year, seasonal week, seasonal quarter
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Filtering Options
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Functions
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Keywords
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Numeric
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>, >=, greater than, above, over, beyond, higher than, more than, exceeds
<, <=, lesser than, lower, lower than, less than, below, under
equal to, equals to, equals, =, between
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Units and Currency
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thousands, k, millions, m, mn, billions, b, bn, Lakhs, L, Crores, C, Rupees, RS, ₹, Dollars, $
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By Range
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top 10, top few, top, top most, highest, best
bottom 10, bottom few, bottom, lowest, worst
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Text
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starts with, starts with, ends with, contains, is
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Date-Actual
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2018, 2019, Q1 2019, Q4 of 2018, quarter 1 of 2019
January 2019, Jan 2019, 1/2019
15th october , 30 july, nineth july 2017, third may 2016, 2 feb 2001, 2019 mar 4, 17/feb, twenty six october
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Date-Seasonal
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June, may, jul, oct, Sunday, saturday, thurs, tue
1st quarter, 2nd quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, first quarter, quarter 4, quarter1
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Date-Relative
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this year, previous year, last year, past year, recent year, previous 3 years, next 3 years, last 3 year, recent 3 years, last nine years, previous few years, recent few years, past few years, recent few decades, previous few decades, past few decades, next few decades, last few years, last decade, recent decade
this quarter, previous quarter, last quarter, this quarter, recent quarter, previous 9 quarters, last 9 quarters, next 9 quarters, recent 5 quarters, previous five quarters, last three quarters, recent few quarters, next few quarters, previous few quarters, past few quarters, last few quarters
this month, previous months, last months, past month, recent months, previous 6 months, next 6 months, last 6 months, recent 6 months, previous thirteen months, recent seventeen months, previous few months, recent few months, previous month, current may, previous november, this apr, past mar
this week, last week, past week, recent week, last few weeks
todat, yesterday, tomorrow, recent 3 days, past 21 days, recent few days, next few days, next day, recent day
recent 22 hours, recent 13 hours, next hour, past hour
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Filter Negation
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not, except, excluding, without, neither, other than, ignoring, apart. apart from, ! =, exclude, exceeding
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Sorting Options
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Functions
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Keywords
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Ascending
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ascending order, ascending, increasing order, alphabetical order, alphabetical order (a-z)
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Descending
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descending, descending order, decreasing order, alphabetical order (z-a)
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By Column
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sorted, sort, sort by column
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