The steps for creating a Watson Analytics prediction are straightforward:
- Starting on the Welcome page, you click on Predict (check out the following screenshot):
- Next, on the Create new prediction dialog, you select a previously uploaded dataset from the list (or upload new data) that you want Watson Analytics to analyze:
- On the Create a new analysis page (shown in the next screenshot), we set some attributes for our prediction by:
- Giving it a name: We do this by entering it in the Name your workbook field.
- Setting targets: Targets are the fields that you may be most interested in and want to know more about. These are the fields that are perhaps influenced by other fields in the data. When creating a new prediction, Watson Analytics defines default targets and field properties for you, which you can remove (by clicking on the delete icon next to it), and then you can add your own choices (by clicking on Select target). Keep in mind that all predictions must have at least one target (and up to five):
- Finally, click on Create.
Once you have clicked on Create, Watson Analytics will generate the prediction.
The following screenshot shows a prediction generated based on a Watson Analytics sample dataset:
Once a Watson Analytics prediction has been generated, you can view its results.
Across the top of the prediction page is the top predictors bar (shown in the following screenshot), where you can click to select a particular predictor that is interesting to you:
On the Main Insight section of the prediction page (shown in the next screenshot for our example), you can examine the top insights that Watson Analytics was able to derive from the data:
From the Main Insights section, you can access (by clicking on the top predictor found—shown circled in the following screenshot) the Details page, which gives you the ability to drill into the details for the individual fields and interactions of your prediction:
After you view the results, you might want to customize the prediction, to refine the analysis in order to produce additional insights. IBM Watson Analytics allows you to change the number of targets and see the effect of the change on the prediction results. In addition, Watson Analytics allows you to save your updated prediction or revert at any time to any particular version, as desired.