Totsum

What to send your analyst

You have a file, you found something in it, and now a person has to check it. That person may be your accountant, a colleague, an analyst or a client’s expert. What do you send them?

In almost every case you send them the original file and the follow-up report. They check against the file, and the report tells them what to check. This page describes what each of the two carries, so that the person on the other side receives what they need.

The file the reviewer checks against

A reviewer who is asked “is this right?” needs the source. They will open the file, filter the same rows, total the same column, or run their own query, and compare. A chart can be checked only against the file it came from. So the original file travels the way it already travels between you and your client. Sending it is your part of the job, with the tools you already use, and this page gives no advice on how to do it, because that is between you and your client.

The report that shows the reviewer where to look

Without a report, “please check this file” does not tell the reviewer where to start or where to stop. The reviewer does not know which figures you used, what you asked, or what caught your attention. The follow-up report is that list. In Totsum it is the object the app is built around, and it carries, for each result you shortlisted, the sections you ticked when you created it:

  • the question, in the words you typed;
  • the chart or the table that answered it;
  • the statistics the app computed for that result;
  • the query flow, a plain-language description of what was read, filtered, grouped and calculated, so that a reviewer can follow the reasoning without reading code;
  • the SQL the AI generated, so that a reviewer who reads SQL can rerun it against the same data;
  • the data sample, a few rows behind the result, on the Commercial license;
  • your note, why this result caught your attention and what you want checked.

The report opens with a statement that it is a first look, recorded for a qualified reviewer to judge. Each result has three verdict boxes, Valid, Invalid and Inconclusive, and page one has a reviewer line, empty on purpose, for the name of the person who judged. The report and the images saved from it carry the marking “Generated by AI.”, so that nobody downstream mistakes the AI’s work for a person’s.

With the file and the report side by side, the reviewer knows the size of the job. If the report holds five results, they confirm each one against the source, with its question, its query and your note. A reviewer who does not read SQL has the query flow, when Totsum could produce one for that result, and your note in any case.

The round trip

Two versions of the report exist. Export PDF produces the flat report, with the charts, the queries, your notes and, on the Commercial license, a sample of the rows. It carries data of its own, as the file does. Export review PDF produces a fillable copy. Its verdict boxes and note fields work in Preview, Edge, Chrome and Firefox. Your reviewer opens the file, opens the review PDF, ticks Valid, Invalid or Inconclusive for each result, writes what they saw, writes their name on the reviewer line and returns it.

Import review then brings their verdicts and notes beside your results in Totsum, with who judged and when. You keep, on your machine, the record of what was checked and what they concluded, next to the data it was checked against.

On a Personal license, the report is exported with a license watermark and without the data section. On the free trial, the whole loop works on screen and nothing is exported; the licensing page has the table.

One file that holds both

When you save your work, Totsum writes a .totsum file. It is an ordinary ZIP archive: inside it, every table of the workspace is stored as a Parquet file, with its columns and rows exactly as the table stood when you saved, plus a JSON file that holds your questions, answers, charts and notes. Anyone can rename it to .zip and read all of it with common tools; the workspace file page explains how.

So a .totsum file is the data and the conversation in one object. It is the right file to move your work between two of your own machines. It is also the right file for a reviewer who has Totsum: they open it, and they have the tables, your questions, the charts and your notes in the same place you had them, and they can ask their own questions of the same data before they record a verdict. For a reviewer without Totsum, the archive is less useful. Opening it takes tools they may not have, and inside they would find the tables as Parquet files, plus your questions. That reviewer is better served by the original file itself and the report as a PDF.

What you are allowed to send

Whether your client allows the file to travel, and to whom, is written in your agreement with them, and when it is not written, it is a question for them. Totsum describes what each object contains; the decision to send it, and how to send it, stays yours.

Totsum Data Explorer is in a private beta, free in its first phase. You can apply for the beta; the free trial opens after it.