# How Scoop Investigates

Understand how Scoop's AI analyst thinks so you can ask better questions

# How Scoop Investigates

**Purpose**: Understand how Scoop's "Digital Data Analyst" thinks so you can ask better questions.
**Audience**: Business Users, Analysts

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## The "Digital Data Analyst" Difference

Unlike standard BI tools that just run the SQL query you ask for, Scoop acts like a human analyst. It breaks your question down, formulates hypotheses, checks them, and synthesizes an answer.

### The 3-Phase Investigation Process

When you ask a question like *"Why is Store 42 underperforming?"*, Scoop doesn't just look up "Store 42 performance." It follows this process:

#### Phase 1: Understanding & Planning
Scoop first decides *what* to investigate.
*   **Context**: It identifies that this is a "Financial" and "Operational" question.
*   **Entities**: It locks onto "Store 42" as the subject.
*   **Time**: It sets a relevant time period (e.g., "Last 14 days" vs "Previous Period") based on your question.

#### Phase 2: The Investigation Loop
This is where Scoop acts like a detective. It runs multiple rounds of queries:

1.  **Round 1 (Broad Scan)**: "Show me revenue, transaction count, and margin for Store 42."
    *   *Finding*: Revenue is down 22%, but Margin is stable.
2.  **Round 2 (Hypothesis Testing)**: Scoop notices the revenue drop and spawns new questions automatically:
    *   *Hypothesis A*: "Is it a district-wide issue?" (Checks other stores).
    *   *Hypothesis B*: "Is it a competitive issue?" (Checks for new competitor openings).
3.  **Round 3 (Drilling)**: It finds a new competitor opened nearby. It drills down to confirm the timing matches the revenue drop.

**Note**: Scoop uses "Bounded Exploration." It limits itself to ~4 levels of depth to ensure it gives you an answer quickly rather than investigating forever.

#### Phase 3: Synthesis
Scoop collects all the findings—both the "Smoking Guns" and the "Dead Ends"—and writes a summary.
*   *Result*: "Store 42's revenue decline is likely caused by the new competitor X that opened 2 weeks ago. This is an isolated incident; other stores in the district are healthy."

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## How to Help Scoop Help You

Because Scoop thinks like an analyst, you can guide it with "Executive Hints" in your prompt.

### 1. Give Context, Not Just Keywords
*   **Bad**: "Store 42 revenue"
*   **Good**: "Store 42 revenue is down. Investigate if this is an operational issue or external market factor."
    *   *Why*: This cues Scoop to load the "Operational" and "Competitive" investigation playbooks immediately.

### 2. Compare to Baselines
*   **Bad**: "Show me sales."
*   **Good**: "Show me sales compared to the district average."
    *   *Why*: Comparisons allow Scoop to detect anomalies (e.g., "This store is 20% below average") which triggers deeper investigation.

### 3. Ask "Why", Not Just "What"
*   **Bad**: "List top 10 products."
*   **Good**: "Why are these top 10 products selling better than the others?"
    *   *Why*: This triggers a "Driver Analysis" where Scoop looks for correlations (e.g., "Top products are all discounted 15%").

## Key Concepts

### "Drilling"
Scoop automatically "drills" into data. If it sees a spike in "Total Costs," it will automatically break that down by "Cost Category" (Labor, Goods, Rent) to find the driver. You don't need to ask for the drill-down; Scoop does it to explain the top-level number.

### "Entity Focus"
Scoop investigates one "primary" entity at a time to stay focused.
*   **Single Mode**: Deep dive on *one* store/manager.
*   **Group Mode**: Pattern finding across *many* stores/managers.
    *   *Tip*: Don't mix them. Ask "Analyze Store 42" (Single) or "Analyze all Mall Stores" (Group). Don't ask "Analyze Store 42 and all Mall Stores" in one breath; it's harder to synthesize.

### "Freeform" vs "Playbook"
*   **Playbook**: For common questions ("Why is revenue down?"), Scoop follows a structured, expert-defined path.
*   **Freeform**: For wild questions ("Does rain affect bagel sales?"), Scoop improvises a new investigation path on the fly. It is flexible!