Getting Help While You Work in IBM SPSS Modeler

To improve your experience using IBM SPSS Modeler, the Version 1 SPSS experts have created various Tech Tips. This Tech Tip shows getting help while you work in IBM SPSS Modeler. 

IBM SPSS Modeler is an extensive predictive analytics platform designed to bring predictive intelligence to decisions made by individuals, groups, systems, and the enterprise. Modeler has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface with a complete set of tools for accessing data, data examination, preparation, modelling, evaluation, and deployment. 

IBM SPSS Modeler users have a complete toolset to build predictive models from start to finish. Modeler uses node-based, visual programming. Users pick nodes from palettes and place them on the stream canvas. Once nodes have been placed on the stream canvas and edited, they can be linked to form a stream. A stream represents a flow of data through several operations (nodes) to a destination that can be in the form of output (either text or chart), a model, or the export of data to another format (e.g., a database). 

Users have access to help throughout Modeler. The help menu includes Help, Help Topics, SPSS Support, CRISP-DM Help, Examples, Accessibility Help, What’s This, About, and a link to the IBM Data Science Community. In addition to these resources, users can obtain help while they are using nodes in the process of building streams. Support is context-sensitive in Modeler. This means that as users are working, help is at your fingertips. For example, in building a stream, we want to filter fields from our data. Using a Filter node, we can click on the blue circle with a question mark. The blue circle sits in the upper right corner of the nodes. Clicking on this blue circle will take users to an explanation of filtering and renaming fields.