Write the field notes before you let the team query the warehouse

sweetmelon team · Operations

You're the only person on the team who writes queries, so the same few questions reach you every week. How many orders shipped late in July, how many of those customers churned, last quarter split by region. None of it is hard, all of it lands on you. Point an AI at the warehouse and let people ask it themselves. Before you open it up, though, write a plain sentence for the fields that get misread. Whether revenue is before or after refunds, whether the order date means placed or paid, what makes someone an active user this month. Start with the ones you keep explaining and you can get through them in an afternoon. Tell it to answer "that field has never been defined, go ask" when someone asks about something outside those notes. A blank is fine. A confident number on the wrong definition is what you'll be untangling in three weeks. Most of the routine questions then happen without you. The ones that reach you are the ones worth your afternoon, and someone in support will eventually find a pattern in the data you never thought to look for.