Asking questions and building reports with Ask Edify

Ask Edify is an AI assistant that answers questions about your data. Ask it something in plain language and it writes and runs the query for you, returning an answer as text, a single figure, a table or a chart. Pin the answers you want to keep and they become tiles on a view.

Ask Edify reads any data in Edify, including systems you've integrated such as your POS sales or rota software. It only ever reads your data - it never changes it.

Ask Edify is on your Home page, below your quick links. If you've already got views set up they're shown across the page. Click + Ask Edify to open the chat and ask a question.

Access is permission based: Managers need Use Ask Edify ticked in Settings > Users, and Admins have it automatically. Permission changes apply at your next sign-in, so sign out and back in if you've just been given access.

For tips on asking questions, see Top Tips for using Ask Edify. For sending a view out by email, see Emailing and scheduling reports from Ask Edify.

Answers come back as text, a single figure, a table or a chart - Edify chooses whichever suits the question.

Every answer has an Assumptions section underneath it. Open this to see how your question was read - for example, what it took "last week" to mean - before you act on the figure.

For how to word a question so the first answer lands closer, see Top Tips for using Ask Edify.

Every answer in a chat can become a tile - the same chart, table or figure, kept on a view.

A view is a page of tiles. Each tile re-runs its question every time the view opens, so something you asked once in September still answers itself in November, with November's figures.

That's what turns this into reporting rather than a series of one-off questions. You ask for the things you want to keep an eye on, pin them, and arrange them into views that suit how you work - a "Monday morning" view for last week's sales, waste and labour, a "Waste" view for the ops meeting. You can also email a view out, once or on a schedule.

A view is a group of tiles: charts, tables and figures. You can have as many as you need.

Creating, renaming and deleting views is Admin-only. To add a view, select + next to the view tabs and choose:

Select the pencil icon to open Edit views, where you can drag a view to reorder your views, use the bin icon to delete a view, or add a new view. Select Save when you're done. You can also double-click a tab to rename it.
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Select Edit view to:

You can only delete tiles you pinned yourself, so you can't remove someone else's work by accident. Admins can remove any tile. Deleting a tile removes it for everyone at your company.

A time period view sets one range that every chart in it follows. Set one to "Last week" and on Monday morning the whole view shows last week without you updating anything.

The view's time period supersedes whatever was set when a chart was created. So if you asked for the last 4 weeks and then pinned that chart to a view set to "Last 7 days", the chart shows the last seven days. You'll be asked to confirm this with Add and follow the date when you pin. If you see Figures still settling under the date picker, the period isn't over yet, so the numbers will keep changing.

Ask Edify context is a free-text box where you tell Ask Edify the terms and targets your business uses - what you call your sites and brands, what to leave out of "top items", your waste target. You can also set which day your week starts on (Week starts on).

Go to Settings > Company > Ask Edify context and select Edit. Only Admins can set it.

Any view can be emailed to whoever needs it, once or on a schedule - they don't need an Edify login. See Emailing and scheduling reports from Ask Edify to learn how.

Your site access still applies. Everyone sees the same views, but the figures inside them only cover the sites you're assigned to - so a manager on two sites sees those two sites in every chart, even on a view an Admin built across the whole company.

Your chats with Ask Edify are private. Anything you pin, though, is visible to everyone who can open that view.

If you manage a franchise, the Home page in your franchise account covers your whole portfolio, so you can ask questions across every site you oversee. See Franchise Management.

Every number comes from a query run against your own data, and a pinned tile re-runs that query each time it opens - so a tile is as current as the last refresh rather than a saved picture.

Data refreshes every 3 hours rather than in real time, so a change you've just made to data in Edify can take up to 3 hours to show in your charts.