Transaction Analysis Wizard: Pick Transaction Variable

You must then specify which variable you will analyse.  This will have to be a Selector variable from a Transaction table.

As with the Basket Analysis Wizard, you can also specify some other options.

Transaction Pattern Length

This is the number of transactions in a row to analyze.  The default value of 3 will mean that the FastStats server will look for patterns of 3 Transactions in a row.  The results will then be presented as 3 transaction values and a count for the number of times the pattern occurred.  For example if the transaction variable is Holiday Destination and the transaction pattern length is 3 then the results might look like:

USA, USA, USA - 109,501

Germany, Germany, Germany - 42,113

USA, USA, Australia - 38,366

Note that the pattern "USA, USA, Australia" shows the number of people that went to USA first, then the USA again and then to Australia (i.e. the first destination in the pattern is the "oldest" destination and the last destination is the "most recent" destination).

Type of Analysis To Perform

The different types of analysis available are First, Last and All.

For example, imagine a person has taken 5 holidays:

  1. France (in 08/2002)
  2. Germany (in 08/2003)
  3. UK (in 02/2004)
  4. France (in 07/2004)
  5. France (in 08/2005)

If the Analysis type is set to First then the only pattern that will be analyzed will be:

France, Germany, UK

If the Analysis type is set to Last then the only pattern that will be analyzed will be:

UK, France, France

If the Analysis type is set to All then the patterns that will be analyzed will be:

France, Germany, UK

Germany, UK, France

UK, France, France

Type of Results to Show

Results can be displayed in terms of the table used or the number of occurrences.

Minimum Occurrence Value

This value is used to remove infrequent patterns from the results.  If a patten (such as "France, Jamaica, Iran") occurs fewer times than the minimum occurrence value then it will not be included in the results.

Maximum Distinct Pattens

Another way of reducing the number of results to show is to set the maximum distinct patterns value.  If this is set to a value other than 0 then the wizard will return the top n values.

 

Click Next to go to Filter Results

Click to return to Pick Selection