Variables in Smart Predict

In the Smart Predict documentation the term variable is used to mean either column or dimension. However, in the user interface and messages, you'll see the specific term for the data source being used: columns in datasets and dimensions in planning model versions. Rows contain the observations for the variable. For example, in a database containing information about your customers, the <name> and <address> of those customers are variables.

In a predictive scenario, variables have different roles that you assign when defining the predictive goal and the training requirements for a predictive model. For example, a variable can be a target, another can be an identifier for an entity, and others can be excluded from consideration by the predicitve model, perhaps because you consider them to have no influence on the target.

Depending on their values, variables can take the following properties: