Data & Policy Guide
Use this guide to understand what data and policies you can ask about. Ask questions in plain English; the Autonomous Data Analyst will use this information to answer you.
What you can ask about
- Data questions — Sales, products, customers, regions, returns, promotions (stored in the database).
- Policy questions — Expense, remote work, leave, security, and code review (stored in company documents / PDFs).
Database tables (for data questions)
The database has these tables. Use them to ask things like "Top products by sales", "Sales by region", or "How many customers?".
regions
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique region ID |
| name | Text | Region name |
| country | Text | Country code (e.g. US, CA, DE, GB) |
What’s in the database: North America, South America, Europe West, Europe East, UK & Ireland, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, ANZ, Central, Nordics, DACH (with country codes US, CA, MX, BR, DE, FR, GB, IN, AU, JP, AE, ZA).
Use for: geography, “sales by region”, “customers in North America”.
product_categories
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique category ID |
| name | Text | Category name |
What’s in the database: Electronics, Computers, Clothing, Home & Garden, Sports & Outdoors, Toys & Games, Books & Media, Health & Beauty, Office Supplies, Automotive, Pet Supplies, Groceries.
Use for: “by category”, “revenue by product category”, “top categories”.
customers
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique customer ID |
| name | Text | Customer name |
| Text | Email address | |
| region_id | Integer | Links to regions.id |
| created_at | Date | When the customer was added |
Use for: “which customers”, “customers in region X”, “customers by region”.
products
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique product ID |
| name | Text | Product name |
| category_id | Integer | Links to product_categories.id |
| base_price | Numeric | Base price of the product |
Use for: “top products”, “products in Electronics”, “revenue by product”.
sales
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique sale ID |
| customer_id | Integer | Links to customers.id |
| product_id | Integer | Links to products.id |
| quantity | Integer | Number of units sold |
| amount | Numeric | Total sale amount (revenue) |
| sale_date | Date | Date of the sale |
Use for: “total sales”, “sales by month”, “revenue by region/category/product”.
returns
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique return ID |
| sale_id | Integer | Links to sales.id (the sale being returned) |
| amount | Numeric | Refund amount |
| reason | Text | Reason for return |
| return_date | Date | Date of the return |
What’s in the database: Return reasons include Defective, Wrong item shipped, Changed mind, Duplicate order, Arrived damaged, Not as described, Better price elsewhere, No longer needed, Size fit issue, Other.
Use for: “return rate”, “refunds by reason”, “returns by category”.
promotions
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| id | Integer (primary key) | Unique promotion ID |
| code | Text | Promotion code (e.g. SAVE10, FLASH20) |
| discount_pct | Numeric | Discount percentage |
| start_date | Date | When the promotion starts |
| end_date | Date | When the promotion ends |
Use for: “active promotions”, “discounts”, “promotions running in 2024”.
How the tables connect
- sales links customers and products (who bought what, and how much).
- products link to product_categories (each product belongs to a category).
- customers link to regions (each customer is in a region).
- returns link to sales (each return refers to one sale).
Company policies (for policy questions)
Policy content is taken from company documents (e.g. PDFs) stored in the system. You can ask about these topics in plain language.
| Topic | What it covers (from company documents) |
|---|---|
| Expense policy | Pre-approval for amounts over $500; submit receipts within 30 days; economy air travel unless trip exceeds 8 hours; meal allowance $75 domestic / $100 international. |
| Remote work | Up to 3 days per week remote with manager approval; core hours 10am–3pm local; VPN required; equipment reimbursement up to $500 for home office. |
| Leave / PTO | 15 days PTO, 10 sick days; up to 5 days PTO carryover; bereavement 5 days; parental leave 12 weeks paid. |
| Data security | Encryption at rest and in transit; production database access requires 2FA and manager approval; no PII in logs; incident reporting within 24 hours. |
| Code review | 2 approvals per PR; run tests locally; no direct commits to main; use feature branches; document breaking changes in CHANGELOG. |
Example questions
Data (database)
- Top 5 products by total sales
- Total sales by region
- Revenue by product category
- Best selling months last year
- Which customers made the most purchases?
- What percentage of sales were returned?
- Returns by reason (e.g. defective vs changed mind)
- How many products and customers do we have?
- Sales in North America (or Europe West, Asia Pacific, etc.)
- Active promotions or discounts
Policies (company documents / PDFs)
- What is our expense policy?
- What are the remote work guidelines?
- What is our vacation or PTO policy?
- How many PTO days do we get?
- What is the data security policy?
- What is the code review process?
This guide is used by the Autonomous Data Analyst to answer your questions. You don’t need to write SQL or know table names — just ask in plain English.