Close.io adds SmartSearch: Data analytics so simple a salesperson can do it

pandodaily.com

42 points·SteliE··10 comments

There a pyparsing+elasticsearch tutorial on how this was built...

Part 1: http://blog.close.io/post/48209152055/sales-data-search-writ...

Part 2: http://blog.close.io/post/49711234004/sales-data-search-writ...

Are these the natural language queries the PandoDaily article talks about, or is that a new thing launching today?

Our search is not yet "natural language" in the technical sense. We've got an extensive number of search "keywords" as described in these tech posts that align fairly well with how you might speak/write a query in natural language, but still rely on a specific syntax rather than pure English phrases. Looking forward to seeing what delver.io is up to :)

The full-sentence example questions in the pando article are very straightforward to get an answer to in Close.io, but they can't be written as-is.

I'm getting tired of elitism passed of as jokes on HN.

I read it as "data analytics made accessible to non-technical users", not as "hurr-derp salespeople are dumb".

"so simple X can do it" always comes off as condescending to me

Then why not just say that? Surely there are sales people in the world who care about consumer metrics and analytics.

The title is directly copied from the Pando article.

Seriously. If sales is so easy, how come not everybody here is already awesome at it? (Yes, the fault is with PD not the submitter, but the point stands.)

As a sales person myself I take no offense. It could have been worded a lot better but what can you do? Press will write the story the way they want.

Disclosure: I work at Close.io :)

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