Dataset Requirements

Auto Insights connects to databases, and you can also upload flat files. The requirements and recommendations in the list below apply to both data upload methods.

Requirements

• Time Series Data
• At least 1 date column (formatted yyyy-mm-dd).
• At least 1 segment column (formatted as string/text).
• Remove free text or unstructured data columns.
• Column names must...
  • Have no duplicates.
  • Be included as the first row of data.
  • Have no more than 5 words.
  • Have no numbers or special characters.

Recommendations

In addition to the requirements, we recommend you use a dataset with:

• At least 1 number column.
• Data spanning at least 24 months.
• At least 5 segment columns (formatted as string/text).

The recommendations are just suggestions. You can still use Auto Insights successfully if your data doesn't have these attributes.

Tips and Tricks

We've outlined a few tips and tricks that you can use to take your data from good to great. While the examples shown are in a CSV file, these tricks also apply if you connect Auto Insights to your database.

1. How to quickly re-format a date:

2. Sometimes data looks Auto Insights ready but isn't. This dataset has a few problems that you can quickly fix:

3. With these few quick changes, you can get insights from this data in Auto Insights in minutes: