ARIMA and ETS Prediction

Hi,

I just a quick question about the Predictive tools within Alteryx. I was wondering if it is possible, if you already have existing time series data, to allow Alteryx to predict beyond the data that is already in place. I've seen situations where users have given Alteryx specific data to allow it to predict from scratch what the outcome will be using either the ARIMA or ETS method, but nothing about doing what I suggested. It seems like it should be possible going from the ETS or ARIMA tool into the TS Plot tool, but so far I haven't successfully been able to make that happen.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Justin

Predictive Analysis

Accepted answers

BridgetT

Hi @jmarleigh,

Actually, there are macros on the Predictive District of the Gallery that solve the problem of performing multiple predictions. The TS Model Factory macro creates models for multiple items at once, and the TS Forecast Factory macro estimates forecasts for these models. If you want more customization than these macros allow, @JohnJPS's approach will work. However, the R tool takes about 2 seconds to initialize every time, so putting an R tool in an iterative macro can create some performance concerns.

All comments

JohnJPS

Hi @jmarleigh

I believe you'll need to use a TS Forecast tool to make the future predictions. I can't see any other way.

jmarleigh

@JohnJPS - I just got there in regards to feeding ARIMA into the TS Forecast tool. One more question, is it possible to forecast for multiple items in a single workflow?

jpburrowes

For those that are getting the "forecast.Arima(mod.obj, h = nrow(covars), xreg = covars, level = conf.ints) :" error, the problem is due to including variables that aren't used as covariates in the covariate input into the Forecast Factory tool.

Only the covariate fields should be included in that input, so make sure to exclude (e.g.) the grouping variable and any other time-series variables that help to order the data. It'd be best to make sure the rows are sorted into the correct order first, so that the groups are in the same order as they are in the Model Factory, and the future values of the covariates are in the correct order, and then exclude all additional, non-covariate variables using a select tool. The columns of covariates going into the covariate input should also be in the same order as the selected covariates in the list in the Model Factory tool.

There is an example workflow available here, which has an example that uses one covariate: https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/TS-Factory-Sample/5772b0ebaa690a1348cc6bcb

JohnTheAnalyst

@jpburrowes , I downloaded and looked at the example you gave for covariates above. I noticed the input data set were forecasts for website hits (clearly not part of the original data set) so, I'm wondering; where did these forecasts come from?

Thanks very much,

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