Introduction
Ask Altrinum is designed to shorten the distance between a practical question and a usable answer.
Many nonprofit teams do not naturally think in SQL queries, raw exports, or report-builder logic when they need information quickly. They think in questions like:
- How many registrations did we have last month?
- What was our open rate?
- Which program brought in the most revenue this quarter?
- What was the no-show rate for paid events?
Ask Altrinum is built around that kind of language.
Instead of requiring staff to navigate several reporting surfaces before they can get a first answer, Ask Altrinum lets them start with the business question itself.
Why Ask Altrinum exists
In many organizations, getting a simple number can take longer than it should.
A staff member may need to:
- decide which report contains the answer
- set the right time range
- choose filters correctly
- export data
- calculate or compare the result manually
- explain the output to someone else
That is a lot of work when the actual question might be simple.
Ask Altrinum helps reduce that friction by giving teams a more conversational entry point into workspace data.
It is especially useful when someone already knows the question they are trying to answer, but does not want to build the answer from scratch.
What Ask Altrinum is best at
Ask Altrinum works best when the question is grounded in data that Altrinum already tracks clearly inside the workspace.
This usually includes areas such as:
- donations
- events
- programs
- email performance
- some workspace-grounded prospect questions
Within those areas, it is especially strong for questions involving:
- totals
- counts
- averages
- rates
- grouped trends over time
- comparisons by event, form, program, or campaign
- questions about one clearly named entity
This makes it useful for day-to-day operational reporting, leadership check-ins, campaign review, and quick answers before meetings.
Why clear questions matter
Ask Altrinum works in plain language, but it still needs enough structure to understand the request.
The strongest questions usually include:
- a subject
- a metric
- a time range
- an optional grouping or filter
For example:
- Show donation count by month for the last 12 months.
- What was our total donation amount last month?
- Show registrations by program this quarter.
- What was the no-show rate for paid events?
These questions work well because they tell the system:
- what domain to look at
- what kind of result is needed
- what time period matters
- whether the result should be grouped or filtered
Why vague questions create weak results
Questions like:
- How are we doing?
- Tell me about fundraising.
- How are our events doing?
may sound natural in conversation, but they do not give Ask Altrinum enough direction.
When a question is too broad, the system may respond by asking the user to be more specific. That is not a failure. It is part of keeping the output grounded instead of guessing.
In practice, a vague question usually becomes much more useful once the person adds:
- a date range
- a metric
- a domain
- a named campaign, event, form, or program where relevant
Ask Altrinum is intentionally scoped
Ask Altrinum is not meant to answer every question about everything.
It is intentionally strongest when the request stays within the data Altrinum already understands well in the workspace.
That is an important design choice.
It helps keep the answers connected to:
- actual workspace records
- known metrics
- supported entity types
- visible platform behavior
This is usually more useful than an overly broad assistant that sounds confident but is not clearly tied to the underlying data.
General analytics questions and diagnosis questions are different
Ask Altrinum supports more than one style of use.
General analytics questions
These are questions where the goal is to retrieve or summarize workspace data.
Examples:
- What was our total donation amount last month?
- Show revenue by event.
- Show registrations by program this quarter.
- What was our email open rate last month?
These are useful when a staff member wants a number, a trend, or a grouped summary.
Diagnosis or improvement questions
These are more interpretive questions, especially around email campaigns.
Examples:
- Diagnose the Spring Appeal campaign.
- Improve the Giving Tuesday campaign.
These are useful when the person is no longer asking only for raw performance, but wants interpretation or recommendations tied to one specific campaign.
That distinction matters because diagnosis-style questions often require a clear named campaign rather than just a general topic.
Why named entities matter
Ask Altrinum can often work more effectively when the question refers to one clear thing, such as:
- one campaign
- one event
- one program
- one donor or constituent, where supported
- one giving form
That is because named entities help the system anchor the request to a real record rather than a broad concept.
If the name is unclear, incomplete, or matches more than one likely record, Ask Altrinum may ask the user to clarify or choose from an ambiguity picker.
That is normal behavior and usually improves the answer.
How Ask Altrinum fits into nonprofit workflows
Ask Altrinum is especially useful in situations like:
- quick prep before a board or leadership meeting
- fast campaign review without building a custom report
- checking event performance after a recent registration push
- comparing donations or registrations across a recent period
- diagnosing one email campaign after it has run
- giving non-technical staff a simpler path into reporting questions
It does not replace dashboards, exports, or dedicated reports. Instead, it helps teams get to a first useful answer faster.
When to use Ask Altrinum instead of a report
Ask Altrinum is usually the right first choice when:
- the question is clear
- the person wants a quick answer
- the answer should come from data already tracked in Altrinum
- the user is still exploring what they need
A dedicated report or dashboard may still be better when:
- finance or compliance needs an exact export
- the team needs a highly structured reporting view
- the answer depends on a very specific operational workflow
- staff need a file, not just an answer
A healthy pattern is often:
- ask the question in Ask Altrinum
- confirm the answer is pointing in the right direction
- move to a report if exact export or deeper operational handling is needed
Tips and notes
If the answer is not what you expected, first check whether your question clearly named the right metric, time range, and entity.
Ask Altrinum is often strongest when you ask one specific question at a time instead of combining too many ideas in one prompt.
Note: The feature works best when the question stays inside supported, workspace-grounded domains.
Example: An executive director might ask for donation totals and email performance before a board meeting, while a campaign manager uses it to diagnose one named appeal campaign.