Prepare Dates & Times (automated data preparation)
Many modeling algorithms are unable to directly handle date and time details; these settings enable you to derive new duration data that can be used as model inputs from dates and times in your existing data. The fields containing dates and times must be predefined with date or time storage types. The original date and time fields will not be recommended as model inputs following automated data preparation.
Prepare dates and times for modeling. Deselecting this option disables all other Prepare Dates & Times controls while maintaining the selections.
Compute elapsed time until reference date. This produces the number of years/months/days since a reference date for each variable containing dates.
- Reference Date. Specify the date from which the duration will be calculated with regard to the date information in the input data. Selecting Today’s date means that the current system date is always used when ADP is executed. To use a specific date, select Fixed date and enter the required date.
- Units for Date Duration. Specify whether ADP should automatically decide on the date duration unit, or select from Fixed units of Years, Months, or Days.
Compute elapsed time until reference time. This produces the number of hours/minutes/seconds since a reference time for each variable containing times.
- Reference Time. Specify the time from which the duration will be calculated with regard to the time information in the input data. Selecting Current time means that the current system time is always used when ADP is executed. To use a specific time, select Fixed time and enter the required details.
- Units for Time Duration. Specify whether ADP should automatically decide on the time duration unit, or select from Fixed units of Hours, Minutes, or Seconds.
Extract Cyclical Time Elements. Use these settings to split a single date or time field into one or more fields. For example if you select all three date checkboxes, the input date field "1954-05-23" is split into three fields: 1954, 5, and 23, each using the suffix defined on the Field Names panel, and the original date field is ignored.
- Extract from dates. For any date inputs, specify if you want to extract years, months, days, or any combination.
- Extract from times. For any time inputs, specify if you want to extract hours, minutes, seconds, or any combination.