Anchor and refining questions

“How is revenue doing?” is a fair question, and a hard one to answer in one go. Which channel? Which customers? This quarter or last? Querri handles that by splitting a big question into an anchor and the refining questions under it.

The idea

An anchor question is the broad question a collection is built around. It names the concern, like revenue by channel or inventory by warehouse.

A refining question drills into one part of it. It might narrow the scope to one channel, cut the number by customer or by period, or chase a cause, like where revenue is leaking.

You’ll meet two sets of words for the same pair. The Questions tab and a question’s own panel say anchor question and refining question. A collection page calls them Main question and Follow-up questions.

Why split them at all? Because answers tend to arrive in pieces. When Querri answers a question from the Library, it uses a saved view only if that view clearly owns the question, neither narrower nor wider than what you asked. A broad question rarely has one view that fits it exactly. A narrow one is much easier to match.

So each refining question gets its own status, its own views under Answered by views, and its own KPIs under Bound KPIs. Add those up across a collection and you can see which parts of the concern are covered and which are still open.

The link runs both ways. A refining question’s panel shows Refines, with a chip for its anchor. An anchor’s panel lists, under Anchorage, the collections it anchors and its refining questions.

There’s one more badge to know. On the Questions tab and in a question’s panel, ANSWERABLE, PARTIAL or UNANSWERABLE says whether the question reaches real data in your sources. It says nothing about views. A question can be ANSWERABLE with no view built for it. If it’s UNANSWERABLE, its Ask button stays off until you connect a source or refine the question.

An example

Curio’s Revenue & Sales collection is anchored by this question:

What is our revenue by channel (eCommerce, retail, B2B)?

Its refining questions come at it from different directions:

• One channel: “What is the average order value for eCommerce?”
• One period: “What were total eCommerce sales last quarter?”
• Each customer: “What is the total revenue per customer?”
• A cause: “What are our biggest revenue leaks: churn, downgrades, and credits?”

On the collection page, the anchor itself shows No view yet. Meanwhile “What is the total revenue per customer?” is Answered by the view Revenue by customer, and the revenue leaks question is Answerable, so the data is there and a view just hasn’t been built. The broad question gets covered a piece at a time.

Names can be shorter than the question. The refining question “Which finished goods are at risk of stockout?” shows Stockout risk at the top of its panel, and its Refines chip reads Inventory by warehouse, the short name of its anchor. The full question is always right under the name.

Where it lives in Querri

Anchor and refining questions share the Questions tab in the Library. Click one to open its panel.

1. The refining question icon, with “refining question” under the text. An anchor question has a question-mark icon and no label.
2. ANSWERABLE: the question reaches real data in your sources.

Detail panels walks through the question panel, and Knowledge tabs covers the tab.

For data teams

Many refining questions are a measure cut by a dimension, such as revenue by customer or sales by quarter. Others add a filter (eCommerce only) or ask for a cause. Grain matters here the way it does in a fact table. A view is used for an answer only when it matches the question’s scope, so a question at a clear grain gives a view a clear job, while a broad anchor mostly works as the heading for the questions under it.

Next steps

• Collections covers what a collection holds besides its questions.
• Views explains what answers a refining question.
• Build your Library around questions puts this into practice.