Chapter 8 Data preparation: Overview

Topics:

  • Tidy data
  • tsibble objects for storing, manipulating, and visualizing time series data. Frequency of time series: the index parameter. key parameter(s).
  • Applying dplyr verbs to tsibble objects: filter, select, mutate, group_by, summarize
  • Periodicity. Seasonal periods.

Readings:

Assignment: Extract, transform, and load your data.

8.1 Data preparation strategy: Design your end-point data table(s)

Starting point: Multiple source files, mess, etc. This is real life as a data scientist!

What’s your desired end point?

Data ETL is a creative activity! (Your jobs are secure.)

8.1.1 Design your end point first (at least, in your head).

  • Which columns? In which order?
  • Which data types should the different columns have?
  • For tsibble objects:
    • Which column is the index? Must have date+time values, at regular intervals.
    • Which columns contain key values?
      • These are values that don’t change with time.
      • Each value of the key corresponds to a distinct time series.
      • Cannot have duplicate rows that share an index + key value.
    • Remaining columns contain observational data: one row for each time step and key value.
      • What data types should these be?
      • Might choose to drop columns you aren’t going to use, to reduce clutter.

8.1.2 Typical structure for a time series data table:

Date + time Series Value_1 Value_2 Value_3
2020-02-01 “Virginia” 33.57 29 “friendly”
2020-02-01 “Idaho” 0.22 18 “hostile”
… … … … …
index key
[date] [fctr] [dbl] [int] [fctr]

Then wrangle your data to get to your desired end point.

Recommended practices:

  • Put index field in the left-most column.
  • Next, put all the key fields.
  • Then finally the data values. Start with the most important ones.