Guide to Data Preparation
A guide to preparing your data for analysis in 11Ants Customer Churn Analyzer and 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer
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Data Preparation Guidelines |
Sample Data
Sample data for 11Ants Customer Responce Analyzer
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Sample Data |
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Tutorial Videos
Tutorial videos to help get you up and running with 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer. Please note that this tutorial video is for Customer Churn Analyzer, but it will show you all the important principals. We also recommend that you review the Data Preparation Guidelines before starting.
11Ants Customer Churn Analyzer
How to Build a
Churn Propensity Model*
* These videos are based upon the Customer Response Analyzer's sister product Customer Churn Analyzer - however the principals are identical.
11Ants Customer Reponse Analyzer Support
How to Get Started
The first step in getting started is to read the Data Preparation Guidelines, then watch the tutorial videos. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section below contains answers to the most common questions.
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FAQ
Do I need Microsoft Excel to use 11Ants Customer Response
Analyzer?
Yes all user interface is via Microsoft Excel, so you will require Excel 2007 or Excel 2010.
To get a trial of Excel 2010 go to the Microsoft Office website
http://office.microsoft.com
How do I Activate the 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer License using my Key?
- Install 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer
- Start up Microsoft Excel
- Select 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer from the Excel menu
- From the 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer ribbon menu select the Help --> License Activation...
- Now enter your validated e-mail address and the License Key that 11Ants Analytics e-mailed to your validated e-mail address.
- Press the 'Activate Now' button and 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer will attempt to activate your copy.
Note, you must be connected to the Internet for the activation process to complete successfully.
How do I get a License Activation Key?
Register for a trial or purchase a license from 11Ants Analytics. Once registered with a validated e-mail address the License Activation Key will be e-mailed to your validated e-mail address.
What is a training set? What is a test set? And why do I need them?
During the course of data mining 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer
observes (or learns) patterns in the data. The structure of these
patterns is then described as a model. It is fundamental rule of data
mining that you should not test on data that was involved in building
the model, as we are interested to see how well the data generalizes to
external data. So data mining best practices dictate that you will split
your data into a training set (the set you learn from), and a test set
(an independent test set, that you can test models efficacy upon).
11Ants Customer Response Analyzer allows one click
partitioning of data into test set and training set - this is achieved in
the PREPARE button, on the 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer ribbon.
Why would I want to randomize my data?
Data mining, and predictive modeling in particular, relies upon a
diverse training set. As an example a given data set may be sorted in
order of least to highest. In that case if we partition data into a test
set and a training set, the lower values may be in the training set, and
the higher values may end up in the test set. We will be putting
ourselves at an artificial handicap by applying a model that was built
upon only low value items to a test set of predominantly high value
examples. By randomizing the data we eliminate this concern and ensure
the examples are evenly distributed. 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer allows the user to automatically randomize
data prior to partitioning by checking the "Randomize order of Rows" box
behind the PREPARE button.
When does 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer stop?
11Ants Customer Response Analyzer will continue generating and evaluating models
until you tell it to stop. There is functionality
to trigger a final build and stop based upon a pre-defined threshold(s)
being met.
How is algorithm tuning handled?
Many of the algorithms used in this technology require tuning parameters
to optimize the effectiveness of the algorithm. 11Ants Model Builder's
proprietary HyperLearn technology automatically handles all algorithm
tuning.
Is 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer restricted to any special type of data?
Generally no - 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer is agnostic to data type.
How long does it take to build a model?
This varies dependent upon the size of the data set, the strength of the
patterns (if any) found within the data, the level of precision required,
and a number of other factors. Generally speaking on small data sets useful
models can be obtained in minutes.
What does the quality indicator tell me?
This is provides a general guideline as to how well the model appears to
be working. This is an estimate only, and is estimated using internal validation
based solely upon the training set.
I would like to deploy a model developed on 11Ants Customer
Response Analyzer
to a production environment, can I do this?
Yes - please contact 11Ants Analytics to discuss options, we have
a number of solutions for this. Ranging from housing the model in our
11Ants Predictor software, to hard coding the resultant model so
it can be embedded into a device.
Can I use Excel for other things while 11Ants Customer
Response Analyzer
is running?
Absolutely - 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer leaves Excel free to be used
for other operations, even while generating models.
What is the maximum number of projects I can have open at one time?
This varies with the version of 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer . Please visit
our product comparison page.
How does 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer handle data that is to be
used to produce a new prediction that is outside the boundary of the trained
predicted mode?
The technical answer is... 'it depends'!
There is no real yes or no, like many things relating to data mining it
is impacted by the characteristics of the specific data set, but the somewhat
unchanging fundamentals are:
- The stronger the underlying patterns are, the better chance that they will extrapolate.
- Very strong patterns will extrapolate well.
- The further the testing/deployment population is from the training set the more challenging it is.
- The more the population diverges from patterns we have seen before the more challenging it is (as would be the case with even a human expert).
- Different algorithms will respond differently. Simple linear methods (e.g. PLS) is more prone to error than some of the more advanced machine learning algorithms.
- Same principles apply whether we are discussing input columns, or column of interest.
- Internally within 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer we are actually evaluating models on how well they are extrapolating, and this is part of the scoring.
Why is your company called 11Ants Analytics?
Ants have an ability to self organize which is unparalleled in
nature. Our proprietary HyperLearn technology is an incredibly
complex self organizing methodology which almost miraculously creates order
from chaos. Our proprietary HyperLearn technology comprises 11
base machine learning algorithms. And we liked the name!
I've tried data mining before with products like SAS and SPSS. Is
11Ants Customer Response Analyzer as difficult to use?
No - absolutely not. These products were heralded as easy to use when they
were first launched, and they really were relative to the alternatives.
However with our proprietary HyperLearn technology we have added
a supervisory layer and 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer provides a whole new
meaning to 'easy to use'. The first person we showed this technology to
was somebody who had been selling data mining software for over 15 years,
his comment: "I have never seen anything that is as simple to use" - that
is the power of 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer. Our promise is if you can
mine use Excel you can mine your data!
How large data sets can
11Ants Customer Response Analyzer handle?
Microsoft Excel has a limitation of 1,048,576 rows, and 16,384 columns.
However for data sets larger than this you can usually extract a smaller
sample to train from. This only refers to the model building process, predictions
are a linear process so for deployment the system can be configured to handle
tens of millions to hundreds of millions of predictions, using our 11Ants
Predictor software.
Does 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer work on Windows
XP and Office 2007?
Yes it does. However certain configurations it may not. We recommend
that that you download a trial of 11Ants Customer Response Analyzer and try it out.
If it does not work try the following work around.
The solution is something that the end user has to apply. This
solution is related to Microsoft technologies and as such 11Ants Analytics
cannot be responsible or guarantee the outcome.
Note this is only for Windows XP running Microsoft Office 2007
- Install Windows XP service pack 3
- Install office 2007 service pack 1 (sp1) and service pack 2 (sp2)
- Modify the register key as described in article "A 2007 Office system application does not load an add-in that is developed by using VSTO" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976811/)
- Install the hot fix (976477) "Description of the 2007 Office system hot fix package: October 27, 2009" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976477/)
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