Managing Mining Models in Data Mining Designer

On the Mining Models tab of Data Mining Designer, you can modify the mining models that exist in a mining structure, and add new mining models to the structure. Mining models are based on the mining structures that you define with the Data Mining Wizard.

The Mining Models tab is made up of a grid with one column that describes the mining structure and additional columns that describe each associated mining model. Each cell in the structure column of the grid lists a column that is defined in the structure, while each cell in a mining model column of the grid lists how the model uses the columns from the mining structure.

Within the Mining Models tab, you can process mining models or create new mining models. You can adjust the properties for a mining structure and its associated mining models, by using the Properties window. You can adjust the parameters of the algorithm that is used to define the mining model by using the Algorithm Parameters dialog box.

For More Information:Processing Data Mining Objects, Setting Column Properties on a Mining Structure, Setting Column Properties on a Mining Model, Mining Models Tab How-to Topics

Defining New Mining Models

After you complete the Data Mining Wizard, the Mining Structures folder in Solution Explorer contains a single mining model that is based on the mining structure that you defined in the wizard. You can add other models to the mining structure by using Data Mining Designer. Although new models must all share the same mining structure, you can vary the algorithm type, column usage, and algorithm-specific parameters for each model.

There are several advantages to creating multiple models based on a single mining structure:

  • Each type of algorithm displays results in a different way. Defining more than one model from the same structure lets you obtain different information from the same data. For example, you may want to use a clustering model to explore the data, and a decision tree model to create predictions from the data.
  • The results of a mining model can be influenced by how the parameters are set. You can create several different models with the same algorithm and vary only the setting of a specific parameter. You can then compare the results so that you can select the best setting for the algorithm.
  • The results of a mining model are affected by the input columns that you select. You can build several models that vary only in the input columns that are used, and then compare the results to determine which columns you should use as inputs.

For More Information:How to: Add a Mining Model to an Existing Mining Structure, Data Mining Algorithms

Editing Existing Mining Models

You can change which columns are included in a mining model and how each column is used, such as input, key, or predictable, by using the cells for that model column in the grid on the Mining Models tab. Each cell corresponds to a column in the mining structure. For key columns, you can set the cell to Key or Ignore. For input and output columns, you can set the cell to the following values:

  • Ignore
  • Input
  • Predict
  • PredictOnly

If you set a cell to Ignore, the column is removed from the mining model, but that column can still be used by other mining models in the structure.

On the Mining Models tab you can also change the algorithm type, the model name, and the parameters that are specific to each algorithm.

For More Information:Mining Models Tab How-to Topics

You can also modify a mining model by making changes to the underlying mining structure in the Mining Structure tab.

For More Information:Managing Mining Structures in Data Mining Designer

See Also

Concepts

Data Mining Algorithms
Data Mining Concepts
Data Mining Wizard
Using the Data Mining Tools
Working with Data Mining

Other Resources

Mining Models Tab How-to Topics

Help and Information

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