Quartiledata
archivedsince 2022
Quartile pulled sales numbers from a small e-commerce client’s storefront and mailed them a summary every Monday. I built it after the client told me, in almost these words, that they had a dashboard already and never opened it.
So instead of another dashboard, Quartile sent an email: units sold, revenue, the four products that moved the most, and a one-line comparison to the prior week. There was nothing to log into and nothing to click. It arrived in an inbox that was already open on a Monday morning.
What it did well
It ran unattended for most of its life. I touched it maybe twice a year, usually because the storefront’s API changed a field name. The client read it, by their own account, every week, which is more than I can say for the dashboard it replaced.
Why it stopped
The client’s shop closed in 2026, and there was nothing left for Quartile to report on. I retired it the same week rather than let it keep polling an API that no longer existed. It is a good reminder that some tools do not fail, they just run out of a reason to exist, and that is a fine way for a small tool to end.
Filed under data