Understanding Insight Cards

How each insight is derived sits behind the help icon on the card. Counting rules for headline tiles (appointments versus completion, campaign links, history that is not un-counted) are in How we count.

Overview

Insight cards are the intelligence layer of Reporting and Intelligence. They appear as a horizontally scrollable carousel on every tab, between the metric cards and the charts. Rather than showing you raw data, insight cards tell you what's notable, why it matters, and what you can do about it.

Where Insight Cards Appear

Insight cards appear on every tab that has data to analyse:

• Overview (up to 9 insights): Demand gaps, concentration risk, weekend vs. weekday patterns, revenue consistency, and more
• Appointments (up to 9 insights): Booking trends, momentum, cancellation patterns, demand imbalance, payment issues
• Customers (up to 5 insights): Retention, returning revenue share, multi-pet households, acquisition pace, growth rate
• Team (up to 12 insights): Revenue per hour, workload balance, utilisation, efficiency rankings, pacing, dependency risk
• Services (up to 11 insights): Service efficiency, trending services, pricing opportunities, category mix, retirement candidates
• Financial (up to 8 insights): Revenue health, payment success, package share, cash flow, refund rates, cancellation fees
• Map (when loaded): Geographic concentration, high-value suburbs, growth areas
• Deep Dives: Each deep dive generates its own specialised set of insight cards (see individual tab guides for details)

If a tab doesn't have enough data to generate meaningful insights, no cards will appear.

Reading an Insight Card

Each card has up to five parts:

1. Headline Message

The main observation. This is always present and describes what the data shows in plain language. Key values (currencies, percentages, numbers, and day names) are automatically highlighted for quick scanning. Examples:

• "You're averaging 1.2 new customers per day. At this rate, you'll add approximately 36 new customers this month."
• "Team utilisation: 72% average. Sarah is at 91%, James is at 48%. You could book 8 more appointments for James without adding hours."

2. Detail Text

Additional context that explains why this matters and suggests what to do. Not all cards have detail text. When present, it appears below the headline in smaller text. Example:

• "Below 60% average utilisation suggests room to grow revenue without hiring. Focus on filling existing team capacity first."

3. Action Buttons

Optional buttons (up to 2 per card) that take you somewhere relevant or trigger an action:

4. Period Comparison Bars

When comparison or forecast periods are active (via Compare and Forecast), some insight cards display horizontal bars at the bottom of the card:

• Comparison periods: Shown as light grey segments, labelled with the period's date range and value
• Current period: Shown as a dark segment with the current value
• Forecast periods: Shown as a violet dashed-pattern segment with the projected value

The bars are proportional to each other, so you can see at a glance whether the metric is growing, declining, or holding steady across periods.

5. Calculation Explainer

Some insight cards display a small help icon (question mark badge) in the top-right corner. This indicates that a step-by-step calculation breakdown is available.

Hovering over the badge shows a tooltip summarising the calculation method.

Tapping the badge opens a detailed calculation dialog that explains exactly how the insight was derived from your data:

1. Context panel ("Based on"): Shows the specific data points and evidence used, such as revenue figures, appointment counts, or team member hours
2. Step-by-step breakdown: Numbered steps walking through the calculation, with highlighted values at each stage
3. Takeaway ("What this means for you"): A plain-language conclusion explaining the practical implication for your business
4. Data footer: When the data was last updated and the date range covered

The dialog is themed to match the insight's tone (green for positive insights, red for negative, and so on).

Colour Tones

Each insight card has a colour that indicates its nature:

The colour is reflected in the card's icon, any highlighted values, and the calculation dialog theme.

Entity List Dialogs

When you tap an action like "View Senior Pets" or "View Top Clients", an entity list dialog opens. These show a scrollable list of relevant items (pets, clients, team members, or services) with:

• Primary label: The entity name (pet name, client name, etc.)
• Subtitle: Additional context (breed, owner name, last visit date, etc.)
• Badge: A status or count indicator (e.g., "7 years", "3 cancellations", "$1,240")
• Clickable rows: Tap a row to navigate directly to that entity's detail page
• Mail icon: Where available, a mail icon opens a pre-written email template in your email client (see below)

Email Templates

Some entity list dialogs include a mail icon next to individual items. Tapping this icon opens your email client with a pre-written, personalised draft that you can review, edit, and send.

There are 11 email templates:

All emails use a professional, friendly tone and are personalised with pet and owner names. They open in your default email client so you can review the content before sending.

Create Special Service Guide

The demand imbalance insight (which appears on the Overview and Appointments tabs when consistently underbooked working days are detected) includes a "Create Special Service" action. Tapping it opens a guided 6-step dialog personalised with your business data:

1. Clone Service: Clone your top service and rename it to something promotional (e.g., "Tidy Tuesday")
2. Set Lower Price: Apply a 10-15% discount to make it attractive
3. Schedule for Quiet Days: Only make it available on your identified quiet days
4. Limit Capacity: Set a suggested capacity limit (calculated from your unused slots, capped at 5)
5. Lock Sessions: Restrict quiet-day slots to this service only so they don't fill with regular bookings
6. Reduce Main Service Capacity: Lower your main service's capacity on quiet days to prevent overbooking, with an example calculation

The dialog also shows a success note explaining the expected outcome: more bookings on your quiet days without cannibalising your peak-day revenue.

The Insight Domains

Insight cards draw from nine business domains, each looking at your data through a different lens:

1. Timing and Demand: When demand happens and how to reshape it (dead zones, weekend patterns, popular time slots)
2. Pricing and Revenue: Whether you're pricing correctly and maximising revenue per hour
3. Customer Behaviour: Retention patterns, acquisition rates, client value
4. Team Efficiency: Per-person productivity, utilisation, workload balance
5. Pet-Specific: Breed and age demographics, vaccination risks, multi-pet households
6. Self-Service Adoption: Online booking rates, time savings, digital payment adoption
7. Packages and Upselling: Add-on attachment, package revenue share, recurring booking value
8. Geographic: Revenue by location, customer distribution, suburb opportunities
9. Cancellation: Day patterns, repeat cancellers, fee effectiveness

How Insights Stay Accurate

Insights are designed to avoid misleading suggestions:

• Non-working days are excluded: If your business is closed on Sundays, Sunday is never flagged as "underperforming". Only actual working days are considered when analysing quiet days
• Part-time workers are respected: Team utilisation insights account for each member's configured working hours. A part-timer with 20 appointments is not compared unfairly to a full-timer with 40
• Actions are realistic: Every suggested action maps to something you can actually do in Petboost or a concrete external step. No vague or impossible suggestions
• Thresholds prevent noise: Insights only appear when the data is significant enough. For example, team insights require at least 2 team members, service efficiency requires at least 2 services with duration data, and trend analysis requires sufficient data points

Scrolling Through Cards

On both mobile and desktop, insight cards display in a horizontal carousel. Swipe or scroll horizontally to see more cards. Arrow buttons appear at the edges when multiple cards are available. Fade gradients at the edges indicate when more cards are available beyond the visible area.

Related Articles

• Overview Tab: Overview insights and actions
• Appointments Tab: Booking and cancellation insights
• Customers Tab: Retention and acquisition insights
• Team Tab: Team performance and utilisation insights
• Services Tab: Service efficiency and pricing insights
• Financial Tab: Revenue health and payment insights
• Compare and Forecast: How period comparison bars work
• Getting Started