Book Image

Data Forecasting and Segmentation Using Microsoft Excel

By : Fernando Roque
Book Image

Data Forecasting and Segmentation Using Microsoft Excel

By: Fernando Roque

Overview of this book

Data Forecasting and Segmentation Using Microsoft Excel guides you through basic statistics to test whether your data can be used to perform regression predictions and time series forecasts. The exercises covered in this book use real-life data from Kaggle, such as demand for seasonal air tickets and credit card fraud detection. You’ll learn how to apply the grouping K-means algorithm, which helps you find segments of your data that are impossible to see with other analyses, such as business intelligence (BI) and pivot analysis. By analyzing groups returned by K-means, you’ll be able to detect outliers that could indicate possible fraud or a bad function in network packets. By the end of this Microsoft Excel book, you’ll be able to use the classification algorithm to group data with different variables. You’ll also be able to train linear and time series models to perform predictions and forecasts based on past data.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Part 1 – An Introduction to Machine Learning Functions
5
Part 2 – Grouping Data to Find Segments and Outliers
10
Part 3 – Simple and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis
14
Part 4 – Predicting Values with Time Series

Summary

To produce a predictive model with linear regression, we have to be sure that the variables involved have a strong relationship.

Linear regression is a supervised machine learning algorithm because it needs known data for training and testing. Even after the model is in production, we need to keep checking whether the model needs an update with new data.

Before we design a model, we have to use statistical methods to probe the relationship between the variables. These methods include the coefficients of correlation and regression, t-statistics, and p-values. The machine learning models are defined and trained on a portion of the data. Then, we test the model with the remaining data, and finally, use the model to make predictions. We have to use our judgment and experience to decide whether the model is accurate or not. Build a chart with predictive values from the model to see whether the values make sense based on your experience.

In the next chapter, we will be...