Configure Library - Events

Use the Events view of the Library page to add, edit, and delete events along with their occurrences. Events can be created manually, through an event file upload, or by selecting a pre-established event package.

The modeling process uses calendar-based events to increase the model accuracy.

Add events that you know are related to the targets being predicted. When created, an event is initially be empty with no dates (occurrences) assigned to the event. You must define one or more occurrences that define what days that particular event falls on. You can add locations to the event to map events to targets using the assigned location dimension.

NOTE: This capability also exists in the Manage Events page in the Utilization phase. However, you cannot add or delete events from the Manage Events page.

Add Events

To add events, click the Add button at the bottom of the Events pane. Then use the Add Event dialog box to add a single event, or to add an events package.

NOTE: Events are validated, and all event details and mappings are stored for later use. You cannot have two separate events with the same name. However, two separate events can have different names with the same occurrences.

Add a Single Event

When creating a single event, you can also add locations to the event. Locations are used to map events to targets using assigned locations. This simplifies the assignment of the event to targets.

  1. In the Add Event dialog box, select Individual.

  2. Type a unique name for the event you want to add in the Event Name field.

    NOTE: Each event in your project must have a unique Event name.

  3. Optionally type a description for the event.

  4. If adding one or more locations, click the Locations drop-down and select the check boxes next to the locations you want to add to the event. The locations in the list are created when you configure locations.

  5. In the Scenario Modeling Event field, select Yes if the event should be included when defining custom Scenarios in Utilization. Otherwise, select No.

    NOTE: Only select Yes for Scenario Modeling Feature if the intention of the project is to run predictions on different Scenarios. If Yes is selected for any event, the project will be considered a Scenario Modeling project by the Xperiflow Engine.

  6. Click Save. A message box informs you that the event has been added.

  7. Click OK to add the event to the Events pane. Any locations you added to the event display in the Locations pane.

Add Events Using an Events Package

Event packages are a useful time saver when defining the events you want to assign to targets. Each event added from event packages includes an event occurrence rule.

Events that fall on the same date in a year include the appropriate specific occurrence rule. Events that fall on relative day in a year include a relative date occurrence rule (for example, the Thanksgiving U.S. holiday falls on the fourth Thursday in November).

You can add multiple events at once this way, then delete or edit individual events from the package.

To add an event package:

  1. In the Add Event dialog box, select Package. A list of pre-configured event packages displays.

  2. Click the check boxes for each event package whose events you want to add to your events list.

  3. In the Scenario Modeling Event field, select Yes if the event should be included when defining custom Scenarios in Utilization. Otherwise, select No.

    NOTE: Only select Yes for Scenario Modeling Event if the intention of the project to run predictions on different Scenarios. If Yes is selected for any event, the project will be considered a Scenario Modeling project by the Xperiflow Engine.

  4. Click Add.

  5. A message box informs you that the events package has been added. Click OK to close the message box and add the events from the selected packages to the events list.

    NOTE: If an event already exists and an event package is added with the same name, the two events will be merged. The merging functionality makes a super set of all occurrences and locations between the two versions of events.

    Adding an event package may also add locations associated with the event package if they don’t exist in the project. They are added with the special engine suffix created. See Add Locations for more information.

Upload an Event or Location File

You can upload an existing event or location file in CSV format that contains your company's events or location information. This saves time over having to manually enter events in the Events page.

TIP: This functionality also exists in the Events page (Manage section) in the Utilization phase.

NOTE: Sensible Machine Learning also lets you upload a locations file or a mapper file for events or locations. Use this procedure to upload files of those types as well. Uploading a locations file saves time over having to use the Locations page to manually add the locations that you want to assign to targets. Uploading a events or locations mapper file saves time over having to manually assign events or locations to targets on the Assign page.

Upload Types

You upload various types of data and event or location data mappings in a .csv file. The following describes the different types of uploads that can be done.

Event Upload

This upload lets you add various events and occurrences using a .csv file upload. If an event from the file already exists in the project, the occurrences in the file are added to the already existing event.

NOTE: Occurrences uploaded through an event upload are created as single day occurrences with no occurrence rules. Occurrences are expected to be in Month/Day/Year format.

Column Definitions:

EventName: Name of event to create or add occurrences to.

Occurrence: A single date the event occurred.

Example:

If no Happy Hour or Closed events exist in the project, their three occurrences are added to the existing events. Otherwise the events are created with their three occurrences listed in the file.

Location Upload

This upload lets you create various locations through a .csv file upload. The job fails if any of the below cases are encountered:

  • LocationName already exists in the project.

  • LocationAddress maps to a well-formatted address already in the project.

NOTE: Use as specific an address as possible. For example, an address such as Rochester may lead to unexpected results because the state is not specified, (Rochester could mean Rochester, New York, Rochester, Michigan, Rochester, Minnesota).

Column Definitions:

LocationName: Name of the location to create.

LocationAddress: Address of location to create.

Example:  

This creates three locations (Little Caesars Arena, White House, The Big House) with the associated location addresses.

Event Target Mapper Upload

This upload lets you assign various events to targets using a .csv file upload. Any prior event assignments are preserved. Only new assignments are created.

NOTE: If an EventName column does not exist in the project, a warning message is written to the AI Services log, but the job continues. If a TargetName column does not correspond to an existing target in a train state (in model build) a warning message is written to the AI Services log, but the job continues.

Column Definitions:

EventName: Name of the event to assign to the associated target.

TargetName: The full target name to map to assign an event to.

Example:  

This creates three new event assignments. You can see these assignments on the Model Build phase Assign page. The Happy Hour event is assigned to two targets ([UD1]Lunch~[UD2]Alcohol and [UD1]Dinner~[UD2]Alcohol) and the Closed event is assigned to one target ([UD1]Lunch~[UD2]Burgers). Any prior event assignments are preserved. Only new assignments are created.

Event Target Dimension Mapper Upload

This upload lets you assign events to targets based on dimensions using a .csv file upload. Any prior event assignments are preserved. Only new assignments are created.

NOTE: If an EventName column does not exist in the project, a warning message is written to the AI Services log, but the job continues. All target dimensions must be included in columns. Leave values in the column blank if not mapping to the dimension.

Column Definitions:

EventName: Name of the event to assign to the associated target.

TargetDim1*: Targets with this value in TargetDim1* along with other dimension values are assigned this event. Values can be left blank to assign to targets regardless of this dimension.

TargetDim2*: Targets with this value in TargetDim2* along with other dimension values are assigned this event. Values can be left blank to assign to targets regardless of this dimension.

Replace TargetDim1, 2 through n with the actual target dimension name, such as UD1, UD2, Scenario, or Category.

Example:  

This example assumes the below image is the target data set with only two target dimensions (UD1 and UD2). The target data set has four targets.

The upload file assigns the Happy Hour event to all targets with the UD2 dimension as Alcohol ([UD1]Lunch~[UD2]Alcohol and [UD1]Dinner~[UD2]Alcohol). It assigns the Closed event to all targets with UD1 as Lunch and UD2 as Burgers ([UD1]Lunch~[UD2]Burgers), and assigns Christmas to all targets since all target dimensions are blank.

These new event assignments can be seen on the configure assign page of the model build section of Sensible Machine Learning. Any prior event assignments are preserved. Only new assignments are created.

Event Location Mapper Upload

This upload lets you assign various locations to events using a .csv file upload. Any prior event-location assignments are preserved. Only new assignments are created. Event location assignments are useful when running the Auto Assign job to assign events to targets.

NOTE: Use as specific an address as possible. For example, an address such as Rochester may lead to unexpected results because the state is not specified, (Rochester could mean Rochester, New York, Rochester, Michigan, Rochester, Minnesota). If an EventName column does not exist in the project, a warning message is written to the AI Services log, but the job continues. If a LocationAddress column does not correspond to an existing target in a train state (in model build) a warning message is written to the AI Services log, but the job continues.

Column Definitions:

EventName: Name of the event to assign LocationAddress to.

LocationAddress: Address of the location to assign to the event.

Example:  

This adds new locations to the specified events. You can see this on the Events page. The Happy Hour event has the 2645 Woodward location. The Closed event has the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave location. The Christmas event has the 1201 S Main St. location. Any prior locations added to these events are preserved, only new locations are added to the events.

Upload an Event File

  1. Click the Upload button at the bottom of the Events pane. The Upload dialog box displays.

  2. In the Upload Type field, select the type of file you want to upload, or use the default Event upload type.

  3. Click Upload, then use the Windows Open dialog box to navigate to and select the file you want to upload.

  4. Click OK. Sensible Machine Learning queues the job to upload the selected file. The Windows Open dialog box closes when the job completes.

  5. Click Update to add the information from the file to the appropriate page.

The events defined in the events file display in the Events pane. Information for the event selected in the Events pane displays in the Occurrences pane and the Occurrences by Date pane maps the event occurrences for the selected event. Any locations for the selected event that were in the uploaded events file display in the Locations pane.

Delete an Event

You can delete any event that is not assigned to a target that has started or completed the pipeline job. If unsure that an event can be useful, the machine learning engine can determine if the event is useful for the model.

When you delete an event, any associated occurrence rules for the event are also deleted. If the event is currently assigned to a target that has not been through the pipeline job, then the associated assignment is also deleted. This applies to any event, whether it was added manually, from an events package, or as part of an events file.

To delete a single event:

  1. Select the event from the Events pane and click Delete .

  2. A message box lists the selected event and asks to confirm the deletion. Click Delete.

  3. Click OK to close the message box and delete the event.

To delete multiple events:

  1. Click Delete on the Events pane.

  2. In the Delete Events dialog box, select the Multiple Events option.

  3. Select check boxes for all events that are to be deleted. Click Delete.

  4. Click OK to close the message box and delete the selected events.

NOTE: You can delete all events if the pipeline job has not run yet.

Add an Occurrence Rule to an Event

To add an occurrence rule, in the Events pane, select the event you want to add the occurrence to and click Add a New Occurrence . Then use the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box to add a specific occurrence rule or a relative occurrence rule.

Add a Specific Occurrence Rule

  1. In the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, click Specific.

  2. Select values in the Date Start fields to specify the Month, Date and Year of the event.

  3. In the Date End field, do one of the following:

    • Select None to have the occurrence fall on the same day of each year.

    • Select Custom, then use the Month, Date, and Year fields to set the last date you want the occurrence rule to apply to.

  4. In the Interval field, select the rule's interval. The interval is how many steps of the frequency are between the occurrences. For example, an interval of 2 with a frequency of yearly will be once every other year.

  5. In the Frequency field, select the rule's frequency from the list (Yearly, Monthly, Weekly or Daily).

  6. Click Save. A message box informs you that the events package has been added.

  7. Click OK to close the message box and the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, and add the occurrence rule to the events list.

The occurrence rule displays in the selected event's list of occurrences, and the Occurrences by Date chart updates to include the added occurrence.

Add a Relative Occurrence Rule

  1. In the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, click Relative.

  2. Select values in the Date Start fields to specify the Month, Date and Year of the event.

  3. In the Date End field, do one of the following:

    • Select None to have the occurrence fall on the same day of each year.

    • Select Custom, then use the Month, Date, and Year fields to set the last date you want the occurrence rule to apply to.

    For example, if the occurrence rule is for a multiple-day event that lasts from October 1st to October 4th each year, set the date start to Month=10, Day=1, and year to the specific year for the occurrence. Then set the date end to Month=10, Day=4, and year to the specific year for the occurrence.

  4. In the Interval field, select the rule's interval.

  5. In the Day of Week field, select the day of the week on which the event falls.

  6. In the Relative Day of Month field, select the month in which the event falls.

  7. Click Save. A message box informs you that the events package has been added.

  8. Click OK to close the message box and the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, and add the occurrence rule to the events list.

The following graphic shows a relative occurrence rule set up for Father's day in the U.S., which occurs on the third Sunday in June of each year.

Add a Single Occurrence Rule

  1. In the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, click Single.

  2. Select the single date of occurrence for the event.

  3. Click Save. A message box informs you that the events package has been added.

  4. Click OK to close the message box and the Add Occurrence Rule dialog box, and add the occurrence rule to the events list.

The following graphic shows a single occurrence rule set up for New Year’s Day for 2000.

Once you have created and configured all the events for your project, you can assign the generators and locations you have configured for your project.