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Best Practices and Prompt Guide: Natural Language Reporting

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Que is your always-on fundraising assistant, built directly into EveryAction. Natural Language Reporting lets you ask Que for a custom report, or an answer to a quick data question, in plain language, so you don't have to pull and stitch together multiple reports.

Ask for the columns, filters, totals, and sorts you need. Que replies with a summary and a Preview, with the applied filters, summary statistics, and sample records, so you can check the results before you export. Whether you’re a fundraiser who needs a custom contributions report or a development staffer who needs a quick number, Que helps you spend your time on the answer instead of the mechanics.

Getting Started with Natural Language Reporting in Que

For step-by-step instructions, check out How do I build a custom report with Que?

Example Use Cases for Natural Language Reporting

Not sure where to start? Here are common scenarios where Que can help:

Scenario	How Que Helps	Example Prompts
Build a custom contributions report	Applies your filters, includes the columns you ask for plus useful defaults like contribution ID, and shows the applied filters, summary statistics and sample records.	Show me contributions over $1,000 paid by check this year, with check number and check date included.
Find contributions that need a follow-up.	Filters on details like whether a contribution has been thanked.	Show me contributions from the last 90 days that haven’t been thanked yet. Include contact name and date received.
Get quick gift-size answers	Returns the average, minimum or maximum gift size for a date range.	What were the average, minimum and maximum gift sizes in the first two weeks of July 2025?
Look up a specific detail	Finds a specific detail about a donor or gift.	What's the middle name of the donor with the second largest contribution in 2024?
Summarize by time period	Groups your data, such as monthly totals.	Show me month-by-month contribution totals for 2026.
Sort your results	Orders the report the way you want.	Pull every recurring contribution from the last six months. Include commitment ID and sort from oldest to newest.
Take it out of EveryAction	Exports the full report as a CSV or TSV file. Select Export Report from the Que chat, then choose a file type.

Prompt Guide: How to Get the Most from Natural Language Reporting

Que works best when you tell it what you want to see. Describe your goal in plain language, and Que builds the report or finds the answer. The more specific you are about filters, columns and time periods, the closer the first result will be to what you need.

Try prompts like:

“Show me contributions over $1,000 paid by check this year, with check number and check date included.”
“What were the average, minimum and maximum gift sizes in the first two weeks of July 2025?”
“Show me month-by-month contribution totals for 2026.”
“Show me contributions from the last 90 days that haven’t been thanked yet. Include contact name and date received, and sort by date received.”

Tips for better results:

Name the filters. Include things like payment method, amount range and date range.
Name the columns. Ask for the fields you want, such as check number or check date. Que also adds useful defaults like contribution ID.
Say how to summarize. Ask for the minimum, maximum, average, first or last value, or ask for results grouped by a period such as month.
Check the filters Que applied. Expand the Preview and open the Configuration section to confirm the filters, columns, and sort match your request. If something is off, tell Que what to change.

You can expect:

A custom report built from your request so you aren’t pulling multiple reports
Applied filters, summary statistics, and sample records in the Preview.
Quick answers to one-off questions about your data using the same reporting skill.
CSV or TSV exports that run as a job and appear under My Export Files

What Que Can Report On Today

Contributions
Basic contact data

What do you want to do next?

Not what you're looking for? Navigate back to Natural Language Reporting Index.

What prompts should I use to build a report with Que? | How do I write a good prompt for a Que report? | What can I ask Que to filter, sort and group by? | What data can Que report on today? | How do I export a Que report? | Why doesn't Que have my event or email data? | Does Natural Language Reporting use Que credits?