Can people in your company ask the BI tool questions in plain English without coming to you?

Power BI Copilot, Looker with Gemini, Tableau and ThoughtSpot can answer questions like "sales by region last quarter" from trusted data, so simple requests do not need an analyst.

Do data requests come in through one form that asks what decision they support?

A short intake form with "what will you decide with this?" cuts requests that change halfway and the meetings needed to clarify them.

How to automate it

How to automate “pull one-off numbers people ask for in Slack or email”

Here are 2 ways to spend less time on this, best first. Each comes with steps you can follow today.

30 min

typically, every day

55%

of the time can be automated

Some setup

to set up

Fix 1 of 2

Software featureBest fix

Let people ask the BI tool in plain English instead of asking you

Power BI Copilot, Looker with Gemini, Tableau Pulse and Tableau Agent, ThoughtSpot Spotter, Snowflake Intelligence and Databricks Genie answer plain-English questions from governed data. Simple requests stop reaching the data team.

Typically saves about 35% of the time4 h to set up

1Check which natural-language features your BI or warehouse license includes.
2Point it at one well-modelled, trusted dataset first (for example sales or support), with clear field names and descriptions.
3Add example questions and approved metric definitions so answers match your reports.
4Pilot it with the teams that ask you the most questions; review the questions it answered wrong.
5Reply to simple one-off requests with a link to the tool and an example question.

Tools: Power BI Copilot · Looker with Gemini · Tableau Pulse and Tableau Agent · ThoughtSpot Spotter · Snowflake Intelligence · Databricks AI/BI Genie

Fix 2 of 2

Process fix

Take requests through one short intake form that asks for the decision

Many data requests change once someone asks what decision they support. A short form with that question cuts rework, meetings and requests nobody uses.

Typically saves about 30% of the time45 min to set up

1Create one intake form or ticket type: question, decision it supports, deadline, who will use it.
2Point Slack and email requests to the form, kindly and every time.
3Triage weekly; answer simple ones with self-serve links.
4For bigger requests, write back a one-paragraph plan before you start.

Tools: Jira, Linear or Asana forms · Slack Workflow Builder or Microsoft Forms

Quick wins

Have you tried…

Can people in your company ask the BI tool questions in plain English without coming to you?: Power BI Copilot, Looker with Gemini, Tableau and ThoughtSpot can answer questions like "sales by region last quarter" from trusted data, so simple requests do not need an analyst.
Do data requests come in through one form that asks what decision they support?: A short intake form with "what will you decide with this?" cuts requests that change halfway and the meetings needed to clarify them.

Who does this task

Roles in our library that list this as one of their common tasks. Each guide covers the rest of that role’s week.

Data / BI analyst Data engineer Data scientist

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