Predictive Analysis is an advanced form of Business Intelligence, which uses Data Mining. In this short demo you will see how Microsoft Excel makes it easy to use. For an in-depth training course on Data Mining, start with our free 20-minute Introduction to Data Mining with SQL Server tutorial, or browse the entire Data Mining video module listing on this page.  

In this video, you will see that the actual data mining engine is Microsoft SQL Server, however it remains hidden from the perspective of the end user, as it is doing all the hard work in the background, while the user interacts with it by means of Microsoft Excel. You will see an example of Shopping Basket Analysis (also known as Market Basket Analysis) done all from within Excel (01:06). The underlying technology is the Microsoft Association Rules algorithm, which comes with SQL Server Analysis Services. You can see its powerful Dependency Network Viewer towards the end of the video (02:10).

Our in-depth Data Mining course, based on Microsoft SQL Server, goes into detail of what happens behind the scenes, it explains all the fundamental concepts, and it will also cover other mining techniques, such as Decision Trees, Clustering, or Neural Networks. If you would like to try it out on your own, you need to have a Microsoft SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, or 2012 in either Standard, Business Intelligence, Enterprise or Developer editions. You will also need Microsoft Office Excel 2010, and the free Data Mining Addins for Office. If you do not have a license for the server or Excel, you can get a trial license for those products from Microsoft. You can install SQL Server with Analysis Services on the same computer as Office and the Data Mining Add-Ins. Use the sample file provided with the add-ins to follow my steps. Enjoy!