Which analytic type is used to observe past behaviors and patterns?

Descriptive analytics is focused on analyzing historical data to identify trends, patterns, and behaviors. This type of analytics provides insights into what has happened in the past by summarizing raw data into a form that is easily interpretable. It employs various statistical measures and tools to present data in a meaningful way, such as reporting, dashboards, and trend analysis.

By leveraging past data, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of historical performance, which can inform future decisions and strategies. For example, healthcare providers may use descriptive analytics to analyze patient records and treatment outcomes to identify which interventions have been most effective over time.

In contrast, predictive analytics is utilized to forecast future outcomes based on historical data patterns, prescriptive analytics aims to recommend actions based on data analysis, and causal analytics seeks to understand cause-effect relationships within data. Each of these other analytics types serves a different purpose, whereas descriptive analytics specifically addresses the observation of past behaviors and patterns.