Using Association Rules in XLMiner™:

In XLMiner™, select Affinity -> Association Rules. On clicking the association rules option the following dialog comes up. You need to specify the data range to be processed, the input data format desired, and your requirements for how much support and confidence rules must have to be reported.

Data range: Specify the desired data range; either type the address directly in this box or, using the reference button, mark the range of cells with the mouse. If the cell pointer (active cell) was already somewhere in the required data range when you invoked the dialog, XLMiner™ automatically picks up the address of the data range in the Data Range text box.

First row contains headers : The first row is taken to be that of headers if this option is checked. Otherwise the first row is also considered to be a  transaction. XLMiner™ gives the headers to the columns, as Var1, Var2, ... etc.

Data in binary matrix format: Choose this option if each column in the data represents a distinct item. If this option is selected XLMiner™ treats the data as a matrix of two entities -- zeros and non-zeros. All non-zeros are treated as 1's. So, effectively the data set is converted to a binary matrix which contains 0's and 1's. A 0 under a variable name means that item is absent in that transaction and a 1 means it is present. 

Data in item list format: Choose this option if each row of data consists of item codes or names that are present in that transaction.

Click OK, and the association rules output will be displayed.

See also

• Introduction to Association Rules
• Example on Association rules