Guided NLQ provides easy access to data through asking questions, but not all questions are simple. That’s no problem with Guided NLQ. On this page, we’ll explain some extra key features to make sure you get the answer to any question.
Your system administrator may have set up focus areas with your data, to help you ask a more refined question of your data without any extra effort.
For the steps below, you will need to pick a data set that already contains focus areas. The Yellowfin training data, Ski Team, contains some focus areas, and we will use it as an example in the following steps.
In these steps, goal is to show a chart of broken bone types of age when the demographic is family, and then refine the results to display only Europe and Africa (EMEA).
If you’re a system admin and you’d like to learn more about focus ares, visit our Setting up Guided NLQ page |
If you have access to other sets of data within Yellowfin, they too might be available for you to ask questions with Guided NLQ. You can start again with new data from the question screen and from the answer screen.
From the question screen, look for the dropdown in the top left corner and click on it to display the Start Again button:
From the answer screen, look for the Start Again button in the top left corner:
Click on either button to return to the Ask a Question dialog box where you can choose your data.
Guided NLQ makes use of the existing date filter periods already available within Yellowfin, along with a few extras (see the tables on Date Filter Periods for more information).
Once you’re familiar with the date phrase options available for Guided NLQ, read on to learn more about how to use them.
Due to the large number of options available, Guided NLQ doesn’t display all the date filter options available when you ask a question. It provides a list of the most popular options only. However, if you’d like to use date option that isn’t displayed, just start typing:
As you can see, typing reduces the visible selection list and may introduce additional, less popular phrases.
Don’t forget that you can use the date selector if you wish to choose certain dates from a calendar. |
A date typically consists of a day, a month and a year. In Guided NLQ:
Any of these combinations will be translated by Guided NLQ into a set date.
For reference, the table below illustrates some examples.
Phrase | Translated output (examples in US date style) |
---|---|
Aug 2021 | 08/01/2021-08/31/2021 |
Aug | 08/01/2021-08/21/2021 (where the current year is 2021) |
Q1 2020 | 01/01/2020-03/01/2020 |
FQ1 | 04/06/2021-07/06/2021 (for the British 2021-2022 financial year) |
2022 | 01/01/2022-12/31/2022 |
Sometimes, you might see an orange dot next to an available field when you’re asking a question. An orange dot indicates that a field is required, and is displayed as part of either a time frame block or a Where block.
If you see an orange dot next to a field, make sure that you include it in your question. Without it, you won’t be able to ask the question.
Your system administrator may have chosen to include mandatory filters to help refine your answers, such as choosing a specific geographical location or an invoice date field.
When your question produces lots of results, Guided NLQ might display those results as a table instead of a chart.
To display a chart, you will need to edit your question so it produces fewer results. The following list contains the limits for different chart types.
Users will be automatically prompted when a query is taking a long time. Users will have the option to cancel a long-running query or to wait until completion.