Modifying the Forecasting Structure (Intermediate Data Mining Tutorial)

Article
03/06/2017

The mining structure that you created in the previous task contains a single forecasting model. Before you process and explore the model, you must change its structure slightly and modify one of its properties.

Modifying the Mining Structure

You can change the mining structure by using the Mining Structure tab of Data Mining Designer. When you created the model with the Data Mining Wizard, you used three columns: ReportingDate, ModelRegion, and Quantity. However, the Forecasting table also contains an Amount column, which you can use to forecast the amount of sales. By using the Mining Structure tab, you can add this column from the data source view to the mining structure.

To add the Amount column to the Forecasting mining structure

On the Mining Structure tab of Data Mining Designer, in the Data Source View pane, select the Amount column in the vTimeSeries table.
Drag the Amount column from the Data Source View pane into the list of columns for the Forecasting structure.

The Amount column is now included in the Forecasting mining structure.

Modifying the Columns in the Mining Model

Because you added a new column to the structure, you must define how the model will use the column. You can specify how the column will be used on the Mining Models tab of Data Mining Designer.

The Mining Models tab lists the columns that the mining structure contains in the Structure column of the grid, and lists the columns that the mining model contains in the column that has the name of the model, in this case Forecasting. Click the names of the columns to make modifications. In the Forecasting mining model, the Amount column is used as an input column and is also used to forecast future sales. Therefore, you must set the properties of the column so that it can be used as both an input column and a predictable column.

Note

In the Mining Models tab, you can also create new models based on the same structure, and you can adjust the algorithm and column properties for each model. However, you must process the model before these changes take effect.

To define how the Amount column will be used

In the Forecasting column of the grid on the Mining Models tab, click the cell in the Amount row.
Select Predict from the list.

The Amount column is now both an input column and a predictable column.

You can also change the properties of individual columns by selecting the column and opening the Properties window. To open the Properties window, right-click the column name, and then select Properties. If you change a property within the column for an individual model, you can change the properties only for that model. However, when you change a property within the Structure column, the change affects every model that is associated with the structure. Whenever you make changes to the model or structure, you must reprocess to see the effects.

Next Task in Lesson

Customizing and Processing the Forecasting Model (Intermediate Data Mining Tutorial)

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