Filter Program to Sort User Calls
DESCRIPTION
This is a filtering program built in Microsoft Access that runs complex queries to sort thousands of troubleshooting call notes into categories and then outputs an organized summary table. The program contains almost 50 queries, each for a different type of problem a consumer might have with their vacuum or steam mop such as "No Steam" or "No Suction". Each of these queries contains a complex combination of different key words and phrases to find different ways these problems can be stated. For example, "No Steam", could be stated as "Not steaming", "Couldn't steam", "Had not been steaming", "Saw no steam", "steam not working", and many more. The filter also finds misspelled words and ignores double spaces. This filter can sort months of data in minutes, with high accuracy and complete repeatability. Using the same filtering criteria for different periods of time and different products produces valuable trends about product issues.
Here is a sample of a portion of one of the filters:
Here is a sample of a portion of a summary table produced by the filter (categories scrambled and data blocked):
PROCESS
While Co-oping at SharkNinja, I was tasked with manually sorting troubleshooting call data into categories to get a picture of the product issues people were calling about and their occurrences. It was an incredibly slow process that was not repeatable due to human errors. After a while I realized that there had to be a way to program the filtering process so it was consistent and automated. I did some research and found that Access can save and run queries which is exactly what I wanted to do. Excited about my self-created project, I took an online class on Access at home to learn how to program what I wanted. Within a week or two I had designed all the queries and was able to produce far more data than ever possible before.
LESSONS LEARNED
During this process I taught myself how to use Access and am now very familiar with the program. I learned how valuable it is to go above and beyond what you are asked to do and look for ways to improve efficiency. Lastly, I learned not to give up on a good idea no matter how challenging it is.