Olsen, Grinnell College
Jeff Perkinson, SAS Institute
Lori Rothenberg, North Carolina State University
Heath Rushing, SAS Institute
Mia Stephens, SAS Institute
Scott Wise, SAS Institute
Annie Dudley Zangi, SAS Institute
Richard Zink, SAS Institute
We also wish to thank Sam Savage of Stanford University for testing the first edition in his class, and David Shultz and Mary Loveless for using the book with customer training.
This book began with a desire to help the new JMP user and evolved into a labor of love. But without the love and incredible support of our families, friends, and colleagues this project would have never materialized. Thank you!
Curt Hinrichs
Chuck Boiler
Sue Walsh
San Francisco, CA and Raleigh, NC January 2020
Chapter 1: Getting Started
1.6 The Excel Add-In (Optional)
JMP was developed to help people with questions about their data get the answers that they need through the use of graphs and numerical results. For most people, memories of statistics can be a very unpleasant, if not forgotten, part of their education. If you see yourself as a new, occasional, or even reluctant user of data analysis, we want you to know that we have written this book for you.
It is important to note that throughout the historical development of statistics as a scientific discipline, people had real problems that they needed to solve and developed statistical techniques to help solve them. Statistics can be thought of as sophisticated common sense, and JMP takes a practical, commonsense approach to solving data-driven problems.
JMP was designed around the workflow of analyzing data rather than as a collection of tools only a statistician can understand. When you think about your data analysis problem, try to formulate the questions that might help you address it. For example, do you need to describe the variation in selling prices of homes in a city or understand the relationship of customer satisfaction with service waiting times? With this mindset, you will find the menus and navigation in JMP to be very compatible with the questions that you are trying to answer.
Displaying graphs (or pictures) of data is one of JMP’s strengths. For most people, an effective graph can convey more information more quickly than a table of numbers or statistics. In any JMP analysis, graphs are presented first, and then the appropriate numerical results follow. This is by design. JMP also provides a Graph menu that contains additional visualization tools that are independent of numerical results, at least initially. The goal of this chapter is to introduce you to JMP and its basic navigation. We cover the menus and windows and introduce you to the conventions used throughout the book.
1.1 Using JMP Essentials
All but one chapter in this book (Chapter 3, “Index of Graphs”) is laid out in a consistent manner to help you generate results quickly. The format of the book has been designed to be used alongside your computer where JMP is installed. After an introduction to the concept, we have designed each section to be self-contained. That is, with few exceptions, the steps required to produce a result begin and end without having to flip through several pages.
We provide numbered steps that generate the result illustrated in the figure that follows. (See Figure 1.1.)
Figure 1.1 Book Layout
| Note |
| This edition of JMP Essentials was written with JMP 15. However, the methods covered in this book are mostly basic and have not substantially changed since the earliest releases of the software. Thus, you will find most instructions contained in this book compatible with earlier and future JMP releases. |
Conventions
We are confident that, having made it this far, you know the basic terminology associated with operating a computer, including click, right-click, double-click, drag, select, copy, and paste. We use these terms and they appear in numbered steps. (See Figure 1.2.) When there is a single or self-evident step, these instructions are included in the body of the text. Each step or action appears in bold type.
Figure 1.2 Selection Path Example
In writing this book, we have adopted the same conventions contained in JMP documentation to ease your transition to using the documentation.
Menu items such as Graph are associated with a JMP command such as Graph Builder. We use a right pointed arrow symbol () to indicate the next step in an operation. Thus, Graph Graph Builder indicates that you should select the Graph Builder command (or platform) from the Graph menu. (See Figure 1.3.)
Figure 1.3 Menu Conventions
Book Features
Most chapters feature one or more examples to illustrate the procedures within that chapter. (See Figure 1.4.) All of the examples have corresponding data tables that are included in JMP’s built-in Sample Data directory (Help Sample Data Library).
Figure 1.4 Data Table Description
Important definitions are in bold for easy reference. (See Figure 1.5.)
Figure 1.5 Definitions
We include notes, tips, and cautions where appropriate to point out relevant or important information.
