Tips for Getting the Best Results from AI Insights

Tugger AI Insights lets you ask questions about your data in plain English. The AI is powerful, but how you phrase your questions makes a big difference. Here are practical tips to help you get better answers, faster.

Start with a discovery question

If you're not sure what data is available, ask first:

• "What connectors do I have access to?"
• "What data is available from my Xero connector?"
• "What entities and fields are in my HubSpot data?"

This helps you understand what you can ask about before diving into specific questions.

Be specific about what you want

Vague questions get vague answers. The more detail you give, the better the result.

Include time periods

Always specify a date range when it's relevant. The AI can't guess which period you care about.

• "How many deals did we close in January 2026?"
• "What were our total billable hours last week?"
• "Show me all overdue invoices as of today"

Name your connector if you have several

If you have multiple connectors of the same type (e.g. two Xero tenants), be explicit:

• "Using the Acme Ltd Xero connector, show me the profit and loss for last month"

If you only have one connector of a particular type, the AI will usually pick it up automatically.

Ask for comparisons

AI Insights is great at comparisons that would take ages to build manually in a report:

• "Compare revenue this quarter to the same quarter last year"
• "Which sales rep closed the most deals this month vs last month?"
• "Show me billable hours by team member this week compared to their average"

Ask follow-up questions

You don't need to start fresh each time. Build on previous answers:

1. "Show me all overdue invoices"
2. "Which of those are over 90 days overdue?"
3. "Can you break that down by customer?"
4. "Draft an email summary I can send to my finance team about these"

Request specific formats

Tell the AI how you want the answer presented:

• "Show me this as a table"
• "Summarise the key takeaways in 3 bullet points"
• "Create a chart showing revenue by month"
• "Give me this as a CSV I can download"

Example prompts by connector type

Accounting & Finance (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage 50)

• "What's our cash position across all bank accounts?"
• "Show me aged receivables grouped by 30/60/90 day buckets"
• "Which bills are due in the next 7 days?"
• "What's our month-on-month revenue trend for the past 12 months?"
• "List all credit notes issued this quarter and their reasons"

CRM & Sales (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Shopify)

• "What's the total value of deals in our pipeline right now?"
• "Which deals have been stuck in the same stage for more than 30 days?"
• "Show me our lead-to-close conversion rate by month"
• "Who are our top 5 customers by lifetime deal value?"
• "How many support tickets were raised by each company this month?"

Project & Job Management (Simpro, Jira, monday.com)

• "Which jobs are over budget?"
• "What's the average time to complete a job by type?"
• "Show me all jobs assigned to [technician name] this week"
• "List open Jira tickets by priority and assignee"
• "Which projects have the highest cost overrun?"

Time Tracking (Clockify, Harvest, Harvest Forecast, Resource Guru, Deputy)

• "What's our team utilisation rate this month?"
• "Who has logged the most overtime in the past 2 weeks?"
• "Show me a breakdown of hours by project for last month"
• "Which projects have exceeded their time budget?"
• "What's the average daily hours logged per person this week?"

HR & People (BambooHR, Breathe, Cezanne HR)

• "How many employees are currently on leave?"
• "Show me headcount changes over the past 12 months"
• "Who has upcoming work anniversaries this month?"

Communication & Surveys (Microsoft Teams, 8x8, SurveyMonkey, Ombea)

• "Which Teams channels have the most messages this week?"
• "Summarise the survey responses from our latest customer survey"
• "What's the average response score from Ombea feedback this month?"

Things to keep in mind

• AI Insights queries live data - results reflect your most recent Tugger sync, not historical snapshots
• Complex calculations may need guidance - if the AI gets a calculation wrong, try breaking it into steps: first ask for the raw data, then ask for the calculation
• You can ask the AI to explain its work - try "How did you calculate that?" if a number looks unexpected
• Access is per-connector - you'll only get results from connectors your Tugger admin has given you access to

Related articles:

• What is Tugger AI Insights?
• Connecting Tugger to Claude