---
title: "Signals Analysis Configuration"
canonical: "https://wiki.yellowfinbi.com/space/user80/1540155/Signals%20Analysis%20Configuration"
format: markdown
---
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## Configuration Overview
This process involves setting up an analysis job for Signals. These configuration settings will vary based on the nature of the business, available data, and users’ preferences. The ultimate goal here is ensuring that the correct number of the most relevant insights are delivered to the most appropriate users at the earliest available time.
> ✅ Signals analysis configuration may require adjustment over time in order to optimize the settings, or as the underlying data changes.
### How to set up Signals
Signal configuration is done at the View level. Yellowfin will perform its analysis based on the setting details that you provide here; these must include:
- **Analysis group:** The nature of the analysis. This could include outlier detection, time period comparison, or changes in trend. Each analysis type is linked to algorithms that allow Yellowfin to look for related patterns in your data.
- **Key Date field:** This will become the basis of your time-series data around which changes are detected.
- **Time window:** Specify the exact time period which you would like the system to analyze.
- **Schedule: **You can take full advantage of the automation aspect of Signals, by setting up a flexible schedule to run them periodically.
- **Metric and dimension fields:** You will need to specify the relevant metric and dimension field to analyze.
- **Filters:** You may also use filters to apply conditions on the data that you want analyzed.
- **Parameters and thresholds:** A set of advanced configurations is provided based on your selected analysis type. This gives you a chance to go deeper into the algorithm’s specifications, such as providing threshold values.
- **Users: **You can choose the audience who will receive the Signals, so that only users who need the insights will receive them. In case of a multi-client organization structure, you can limit the Signals to be accessed by specific client orgs.
## Instructions
Follow the instructions below to set up an automated Signals analysis job.
> ⚠️ You will require the ‘Configuration’ role function to perform these steps. If you want to learn more about the Signals role functionality, refer to [this](https://yellowfin.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/user80/pages/1540166/Yellowfin+Signals+Basic#YellowfinSignalsBasic-signals_roles) section.
> ⚠️ You have an option of pre-selecting or changing certain pre-selected Automated Insights parameters or general settings related to Signal. Click [here](#SignalsAnalysisConfiguration-general_setting) to learn more.
1. To set up a Signals analysis, navigate to the main Signals page. (Left side navigation > Signals)
2. Click on the **Manage Signals** tab.
3. Click on the **+Create New Analysis** button to create a new Signals analysis. This initiates a multi-step configuration process to help you set up the automated analysis relevant to you.
**Step 1: Analysis group type**
4. Before beginning, establish the type of analysis that you want the system to perform for you. There are three analysis types to choose from. (Refer to the Signals type section to identify which type of anomaly to detect through one of these analysis types.)
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5. Click on the **Next** button of the preferred analysis to continue.
**Step 2: Name and description**
6. In this step, provide the basic details to describe this analysis.
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1. **Analysis Name:** (mandatory field) A unique name will help you to identify it later.
2. **Description of Analysis: **Add a description to explain the intent of this analysis.
7. Continue to the next step.
**Step 3: Time & schedule**
8. The **Time & Schedule** step involves highlighting the time periods that you want the system to analyze, along with configuring how frequently this analysis should be executed. Below is a description of each of the settings. (Note: The fields and their purpose differ according to the different analysis types.)
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9. Continue to the next step to proceed.
**Step 4: Metric & dimensions**
10. In the **Metrics & Dimensions** step, you can select or unselect the fields in your data, that are important to you. Yellowfin will analyze these fields in order to detect Signals.
1. **Metrics: **Choose the numeric fields that will be analyzed, such as age, sales, profit. A default aggregation type must be specified for each metric for it to be analyzed. Choose one of the following aggregation types:
- **Sum:** generates insights based on the sum or total of the selected metric field.
- **Average: **generates insights based on the average of the selected metric field.
*Calculated fields* are also supported, but their aggregation cannot be changed. This affects the Signal narrative as the aggregation type will not be mentioned in it. There are, however, certain cases of calculated field that aren’t supported in the Signals analysis: this includes those with average aggregation, or calculation containing a dynamic ratio (meaning a ratio that involves two fields). If such a field is selected, it will bring up a warning message.
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2. **Dimensions: **Select the dimension fields that are relevant to the analysis. The system will look for Signals related to these fields. (Note: Selecting too many may slow down the analysis.)
11. Proceed to the next step by clicking on the Continue button.
**Step 5: Filters**
12. The **Filter** step is used to add conditional filters on your View data. If your View contains a vast range of data, you may not want to include all the data in the analysis. This allows you to control the data that you want the Signals engine to focus on.
Note: The filter condition will become the ‘baseline’ of the Signals.
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13. To create a filter condition, ensure that you understand the above screen.
14. Create a filter condition by choosing a field. Yellowfin filters work by establishing a condition on a field.
15. Then specify an operator for the selected field and define the value.
16. You can add more filter conditions by adding more fields, and doing the same for them. Then define the ADD/OR logic between the multiple conditions.
17. To delete a Signal filter, hover over the field name until the dropdown menu icon appears, then click on it and select Delete.
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18. Once all the conditions are defined, proceed to the next step.
**Step 6: Algorithm parameters**
19. In the **Algorithm Parameters** step, you can configure advanced Signals settings. These configurations will be specific to the selected analysis type, and the algorithms involved. See below for explanation on these.
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1. **Advanced mode toggle:** Use this toggle to view additional advanced settings. Descriptions for these are in the tables below, according to their selected analysis group.
2. **Configure sensitivity:** Signals are generated when a detected data event exceeds pre-defined threshold. Use this slider to automatically increase or decrease these thresholds. The higher the sensitivity, the more signals will be generated.
3. **Alternate threshold field:** This parameter is specifically used for determining importance of Signals for the user base. When ranking a Signal for importance, the value of an alternate field can be used. This is mandatory for when calculated ratios or average fields are included in your job, and recommended best practice if you are using pre-calculated ratios. If an alternate metric is selected, it will be used to rank all analysis metrics in this job. Leave blank if you want to use the analysis metric to determine the threshold.
**General advanced parameters:**
These are the general advanced parameters that can be configured for each analysis group. Note that their default values will differ according to the level of the Sensitivity Slider.
Advanced parameters for **Outliers** analysis:
Advanced configuration for** Period Comparison:**
Advanced parameters for **Trend Changes**:
20. Continue to the next step.
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**Step 7: Client Organizations**
21. If you have a multi-client organization setup for your Yellowfin instance, then the additional **Client Organizations** step can be configured. Here you can choose to limit specific client organizations if you don’t want them included in the analysis (because unless specified, the system includes all the organizations by default).
If enabled, the engine will only look at client organizations that can access the View this analysis is created in. (Note, however, that users of disabled organizations will still be able to access previously generated Signals, if the client orgs already exist. But if they’re new, they will not be able to access the Signals.)
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1. Enable the main toggle to initiate the client organization limitation functionality. A list of all your client orgs will appear.
2. Enable the toggle for any client organization that you do want to include the analysis. (Clients with disabled toggles will not be included.)
3. If you want to exclude all client organizations, leave their toggles disabled.
22. Continue to the next step.
**Step 8: Users**
23. In the **Users** step, you can select users whose related data will be included in the analysis (by default every user’s data will be included in the analysis, but we can choose to include only specific users here).
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1. Enable the toggle to include users in this analysis schedule.
2. Then search and select these users (or groups).
24. Once all the configurations are provided, save this analysis job by clicking on the **Save and Exit **button in the top corner.
25. The saved Signals analysis job will appear in the list. Learn more about managing these analysis jobs [here](#SignalsAnalysisConfiguration-managejobs).
26. Click Submit once done.
27. Publish the view, and exit the view builder.
28. The Signals analysis will run according to schedule. However, to manually run an analysis, refer to the section below.
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# Manage Signal Analysis
Once a Signal analysis has been defined, you can edit, delete, copy, run it, or even clear its Signals. The **Manage Signals** tab on the main Signals page maintains a list of all Signal analysis.
Note: only users with the “Configuration” role function enabled for Signals can access this page.
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### Edit Signal Analysis
Click on the name of a Signal analysis to edit its settings. Make sure to save the changes by clicking on the ***Save and Exit*** button on the last page.
### Enable or Disable Signal Analysis
You can disable a Signal analysis to stop it from being executed by disabling its toggle. When disabled, the analysis will not generate or detect Signals. Similarly, you can enable this toggle to enable the analysis again.
### Delete Signal Analysis
You can delete a Signal analysis by clicking on the **Delete** option. This disables the analysis and deletes the configuration settings, stopping Signals from being detected. Existing Signals generated by this analysis are also removed.
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Confirm the message to proceed deleting the Signal analysis.
### Copy Signal Analysis
Click on the Copy option to create a duplicate copy of the Signal analysis with the same configuration.
### Clear Analysis Run
Click on the **Clear Analysis**** **option to remove all runs from this Signal analysis. A *‘run’* refers to each time a Signal analysis is executed. This option also removes Signals discovered *only* by the deleted analysis runs; i.e. if another analysis found any of the same Signals, then those will still exist in the system.
This is ideal for clearing existing Signals until the analysis is run again. These Signals are removed from everywhere in the system (such as the Timeline, and Signals list page). However, if the analysis rediscovers the same insights again during another run, those Signals will resurface, complete with previous discussion comments if there were any.
This brings up the following confirmation popup. Click **Clear** to continue.
**Tip:** You can also monitor specific analysis runs through the Monitor tab.
### Run Analysis
Click on the **Run Now** option to run a Signal analysis on demand, regardless of when it was scheduled to be executed.
You will not be able to “run” an analysis that’s already running.
**Note:** this option will only be available to you if you have the role function to access the Schedule Management module. You can perform this same function through the Scheduler, as discussed [below](#SignalsAnalysisConfiguration-signalscheduler).
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## Pre-selecting Signals Settings
Before you create a Signals job, there are certain general settings that you an option of setting up. These include pre-selecting the key date field, granularity level, updating the time slider, as well as updating the metric and dimension fields selected for Assisted Insights, as they are taken into account for the Signal analysis. This section covers these additional set-ups.
#### Define good or bad characteristics
The data fields that the Signal analysis focuses on are the same ones that were selected for Assisted/Automated Insights. (For more information on the Assisted Insights setup, click here.) This includes the characteristics of those fields, that is whether a high value is a good result or a bad one. To change these settings, see the below steps:
1. Open the **Assisted Insights Setup** window , and click on the **Key Variables** tab.
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2. Fields with the **Included** checkbox selected are the ones that are analyzed for the Signals analysis. You can change these if you prefer to focus on other fields.
3. To include any fields in the Signals related charts (that is, charts based on data related to the main time series data, that appears on the final Signal UI for comparison), select their **Related** checkbox.
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4. Establish if a high value of the field is a *good* result or *bad*. For example, higher sales would be good for the business, but a big number of workplace incidents would be bad. (Fun fact: this is also reflected in the Signals narrative - good results are highlighted as blue, and bad as orange.)
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#### Pre-select time parameters
You or your administrator can preset default values for the Signals’ time series. These will be merely selected as default values when setting up a new Signals analysis, but can be easily changed by the user, if required. The values you can set here include the default date field, the default granularity, and the time slider’s range.
Click on the **General Settings** tab in the set up window. Choose options for the three fields defined below.
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- **Primary Date Field: **This field will be set as the default for the Signal’s time series chart. (The other two fields will only appear when a date field selection is made here.)
- **Scope of Analysis:** Set a default granularity level of the Signals’ time series chart.
- **Max Data Range**: This fields maximizes the time window that can be viewed in the Signal’s time series. The range established here effectively gets added to the start of the time slider. For example, if 3 months are specified in this field, the time slider will increase to add 3 months before its default time window.
Note: Any value set for these fields, has to be saved, before they can appear as default values in the Signals analysis.
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## Manually execute a scheduled Signals analysis
These instructions will allow you to run a Signals analysis task on demand.
1. From the left side menu, expand Administration and click on Schedule Management.
2. Choose the Signals analysis from the list and click** Run Now**.
3. There are other options that you could perform through here.
1. **Edit: **Use this option to change the scheduling details of this Signals task, such as, setting up a new schedule time.
2. **Resume:** Resume a paused task.
3. **Delete: **To delete the Signal analysis analysis.
4. On running this task, you should receive Signals that the system detects. Signals that are relevant to you, will appear in your Timeline, but to see all the generated Signals, check the Signals list page.
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# Monitor Signal Analyses
The **Monitor Signals** page shows each analysis that have run, in chronological order. An analysis can run multiple times, each time is referred to as an analysis run.
**Note:** only users with the “Configuration” role function enabled for Signals can access this page.
Navigate to this page by clicking on the **Monitor Signals** tab on the main Signals page.
A screen will each analysis run will appear.
Details of each run includes:
- **View**** **- the view where the analysis is based.
- **Analysis name** - name of the Signal analysis.
- **Date run**** **- the date the analysis was run.
- **Time taken** - the time duration it took to run this analysis.
- **Status**** **- the end result of the analysis. This tracks whether a run was successful or not.
- If an analysis was *successful*, the result shows the total number of Signals that were discovered (includes old or new signals alike).
- If an analysis was waiting in the queue to be run, the status will appear as *Queued*.
- If an analysis is currently being run, the status will display *Running*.
- If an analysis failed during a run, the status will appear as *Failed*.
Click on the icon next to each analysis run. The following options will be provided for successful runs.
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### Export Signals to CSV
Exports the result of a single analysis into an external CSV file. This allows users to compare Signals discovered between different analysis runs.
### Delete Analysis Run
Click on the **Delete** option to remove the results of the selected analysis run. (This is the same functionality as [Clear Analysis.](#SignalsAnalysisConfiguration-clearanalysis))