Summary
Ask Edify answers questions about your data in plain language. Ask it something and it writes and runs the query for you, returning a chart, a table or a figure. How you word that question decides how close the first answer lands, so these are our recommendations for getting the best out of it.
For what Ask Edify is, where to find it, and how views work, see Asking questions and building reports with Ask Edify.
⚠️ Ask Edify is in beta and we're still improving how it reads questions. If an answer's wrong or not what you meant please contact Customer Support via Live Chat or hello@edifysystems.io
Tip One: Be specific about what you want to see
Edify picks the chart to fit your question, so the more you pin down, the closer the first answer lands. A good question names four things:
What to include | Example |
Which sites | "All sites", "Soho and Borough" - or leave it out to mean every site you have access to. |
Which period | "Last week", "the last 4 weeks", "September", "this month so far". |
Which measure | Sales, GP%, waste £, COGS, labour hours. Say £ if you mean money, % if you mean a percentage. |
How to split it | "By site", "by reason", "by hour", "by supplier". Leave it out and you get a single total. |
They don't need spelling out one by one. For example, this question covers all four in a sentence:
Which sites missed their GP target last month?
All sites, GP against target, last month, split by site. Ask for GP on its own and Edify has to guess at every one of them - you might get a single GP% figure for a period you didn't mean.
Further examples:
Example of a vague question | What you might get | Ask this instead |
Show me waste | A single waste £ figure for a period Edify picks | Waste £ by site for the last 7 days, split by reason |
Sales comparison | A table with every site and every day | Compare last week's sales across all sites |
GP | One GP% figure for a period Edify picks | GP% by site for the last 4 weeks against our 70% target |
💡 Save your targets and the terms your business uses in Settings > Company > Ask Edify Context and you won't have to restate them every time. See Asking questions and building reports with Ask Edify.
Tip Two: Keep going in the same chat
If the first answer isn't right, keep going in the same chat rather than closing it and starting again. Edify remembers what it's already produced.
Phrases that work well as follow-ups: "split that by", "just the top ten", "compare it to last year", "as a percentage", "the same for waste", "by hour instead".
Reword rather than repeat - asking the same thing again won't reliably fix it. Name what you can see and say what should change:
It's showing revenue, I meant GP%
Those are daily figures. Make it weekly.
Take out the CPU site.
Open Assumptions under any answer to see which sites, period and measure Edify used - it's the quickest way to spot what to reword.
If it still misses after two tries, contact Customer Support and we'll help you word it.
💡 Opening Chat from a tile lets you ask more about that chart. When you get the version you want, select Update "<chart name>" to replace the tile (if you pinned it, or you're an Admin), or New pin to add it as a separate tile.
Tip Three: Pin what you want to keep
Every chart in the chat has a Pin to view button.
Select Pin to view.
Choose a view, or (Admins only) select New view to create one as you pin.
Pinned charts become tiles on a view.
Pinning a chart again moves it to the new view; to have it on two views, ask the question again and pin the new answer. Each tile has Pin, Chat, Email and CSV buttons across its top. To remove a tile, use Edit view.
💡 If you want figures for a spreadsheet rather than a picture, ask for a table. Pin it, then download it as a CSV.
To move, resize or remove tiles, see Customise your view in Asking questions and building reports with Ask Edify.
Tip Four: Know the right phrases
The table below provides a great starter guide on how to word questions to get the result you want.
What you want to know | Ask something like | What you get |
A single figure | What were total sales across all sites last week? | The number, large. Add "vs the week before" for the change alongside it. |
A figure against a target | How are sales so far this week against the weekly forecast? | The number with a progress bar. Works with "budget", "target" or "forecast". |
A trend over time | How has revenue trended over the last 12 weeks? | A line. Add "by site" for one line each, and say "weekly" or "daily" to set the points. |
Sites side by side | Compare last month's sales across all sites | Bars, one per site. |
A ranking | What are the top 10 most wasted items across the network? | Horizontal bars, biggest first. "Top 10" or "bottom 5" sets the cut. |
A total broken down | Show me waste £ by site for the last 7 days, split by reason | Stacked bars with a colour per reason. "Split by" is the cue. |
Who hit a target | Show GP% by site for the last 4 weeks against our 70% target | Bars with a dashed target line, and sites that miss it in amber - under target for GP or sales, over target for waste or cost. |
Who's over and who's under | What is the COGS variance against theoretical at each site this month? | Bars either side of a zero line, largest first. Also works for "gap" and "change vs last year". |
Share of a whole | What share of last week's waste was end of day? | A donut, with each share in the legend. |
A pattern across hours and days | Show sales by hour and weekday for the last 4 weeks | A grid, darker where it's busier. Any two things that repeat will work. |
Two measures per item | Plot units sold against GP% for every menu item this month | A menu matrix. |
The numbers themselves | List supplier spend for the last 30 days with order count and share of spend | A table. Pin it to sort and filter by any column. |
Some charts change shape once there's a lot in them, so what comes back may not look how you pictured it:
When | What happens |
More than six slices in a share question | You get bars instead, because a twelve-slice pie can't be read. |
A trend across many sites | With seven or more sites, the five busiest draw first and the rest sit behind the Site menu, e.g. "Site (5 of 12)". |
If a chart still looks too busy, ask it to narrow the question rather than fighting the chart.
Tell us how it's doing
Your feedback matters while Ask Edify is in beta.
Under each answer in the chat: if it gets something right, give it a thumbs up. If it's wrong, give it a thumbs down. For anything more, select the speech bubble icon, tell us what happened and select Send feedback.