Hi Ian
The recommendation for using Smartform is to access the database with an SQL client, such as MySQL Workbench (though there are many others, such as dBeaver, Heidi, etc). This means that you can review any results set and export to CSV (and then use Excel's tools) and run or build systems based on filters or queries (most so called "system builder" tools are just using a database and queries underneath anyway).
However, to do so you need at least basic to intermediate SQL skills. Using the new Insights tables also helps, since it means that many derived variables are already present so you don't have to create these yourself from the raw data, and can just query them.
See:
https://www.betwise.co.uk/smartform/historic_runners_insights
So, for example, a number of strike rate statistics are already available in the data, meaning that you could query the data to search for place course strike rates for horses over 20%, combined with any other filters of your choosing. Without this, you would also have to devise the query to create the strike rates in the first place - which many users also do.
To develop an algorithm programming skills are useful. Most modern languages provide a database interface so that you can connect directly to the database to manipulate the data, devise algorithms and present results for yourself. See the various blog posts that use R in this regard, such as:
https://blog.betwise.net/2018/04/28/calculating-strike-rate-using-smartform-and-r/
https://blog.betwise.net/2020/08/23/looking-at-the-importance-of-variables/
Hope this helps!
