Wow, I can't believe we're on Day 3 already! In case you forgot, it's still John at Maven Analytics here.

Yesterday you answered Sarah's first question: Laptops are driving the most revenue, and discounting behaviour varies significantly by category. Good analysis.

Then Sarah asked the follow-up question. They always do.

• "That's useful, but how did each month track? I want to know if we're growing or declining across Q1."

That's a trend question. And trends often contradict totals, which is exactly why analysts always look at both.

What changes today

Up until now, every query has treated Q1 as one block of data. But 30 orders spread across January, February, and March might tell very different stories month by month. A strong total can hide a business that started well and declined. Or one that started slow and accelerated.

Today you learn to slice data by time, which is one of the most frequent things analysts actually do on the job.