docs/manual/source/templates/leadscoring/dase.html.md.erb

---
title: DASE Components Explained (Lead Scoring)
---

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<%= partial 'shared/dase/dase', locals: { template_name: 'Lead Scoring Engine Template' } %>

## The Engine Design

As you can see from the Quick Start, *MyLeadScoring* takes a JSON prediction
query, e.g. '{ "landingPageId" : "example.com/page9", "referrerId" : "referrer10.com", "browser": "Firefox" }' , and return a JSON predicted result.
In MyLeadScoring/src/main/scala/***Engine.scala***, the `Query` case class
defines the format of such **query**:

```scala
case class Query(
  landingPageId: String,
  referrerId: String,
  browser: String
) extends Serializable
```

The `PredictedResult` case class defines the format of **predicted result**,
such as

```json
{"score":0.7466666666666667}
```

with:

```scala
case class PredictedResult(
  score: Double
) extends Serializable
```

Finally, `LeadScoringEngine` is the *Engine Factory* that defines the
components this engine will use: Data Source, Data Preparator, Algorithm(s) and
Serving components.

```scala
object LeadScoringEngine extends IEngineFactory {
  def apply() = {
    new Engine(
      classOf[DataSource],
      classOf[Preparator],
      Map("randomforest" -> classOf[RFAlgorithm]),
      classOf[Serving])
  }
}
```

Each DASE component of the `LeadScoringEngine` will be explained below.

By default, Spark's MLlib [RandomForest algorithm](https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/mllib-ensembles.html#random-forests) is used.

## Data

In the DASE architecture, data is prepared by 2 components sequentially: *DataSource* and *DataPreparator*. They take data
from the data store and prepare them for Algorithm.

### Data Source

In MyLeadScoring/src/main/scala/***DataSource.scala***, the `readTraining`
method of class `DataSource` reads and selects data from the *Event Store*
(data store of the *Event Server*). It returns `TrainingData`.

```scala
class DataSource(val dsp: DataSourceParams)
  extends PDataSource[TrainingData,
      EmptyEvaluationInfo, Query, EmptyActualResult] {

  @transient lazy val logger = Logger[this.type]

  override
  def readTraining(sc: SparkContext): TrainingData = {

    val viewPage: RDD[(String, Event)] = PEventStore.find(
      appName = dsp.appName,
      entityType = Some("user"),
      eventNames = Some(Seq("view")),
      // targetEntityType is optional field of an event.
      targetEntityType = Some(Some("page")))(sc)
      // PEventStore.find() returns RDD[Event]
      .map { event =>
        val sessionId = try {
          event.properties.get[String]("sessionId")
        } catch {
          case e: Exception => {
            logger.error(s"Cannot get sessionId from event ${event}. ${e}.")
            throw e
          }
        }
        (sessionId, event)
      }

    val buyItem: RDD[(String, Event)] = PEventStore.find(
      appName = dsp.appName,
      entityType = Some("user"),
      eventNames = Some(Seq("buy")),
      // targetEntityType is optional field of an event.
      targetEntityType = Some(Some("item")))(sc)
      // PEventStore.find() returns RDD[Event]
      .map { event =>
        val sessionId = try {
          event.properties.get[String]("sessionId")
        } catch {
          case e: Exception => {
            logger.error(s"Cannot get sessionId from event ${event}. ${e}.")
            throw e
          }
        }
        (sessionId, event)
      }

    val session: RDD[Session] = viewPage.cogroup(buyItem)
      .map { case (sessionId, (viewIter, buyIter)) =>
        // the first view event of the session is the landing event
        val landing = viewIter.reduce{ (a, b) =>
          if (a.eventTime.isBefore(b.eventTime)) a else b
        }
        // any buy after landing
        val buy = buyIter.filter( b => b.eventTime.isAfter(landing.eventTime))
          .nonEmpty

        try {
          new Session(
            landingPageId = landing.targetEntityId.get,
            referrerId = landing.properties.getOrElse[String]("referrerId", ""),
            browser = landing.properties.getOrElse[String]("browser", ""),
            buy = buy
          )
        } catch {
          case e: Exception => {
            logger.error(s"Cannot create session data from ${landing}. ${e}.")
            throw e
          }
        }
      }.cache()

    new TrainingData(session)
  }
}
```

PredictionIO automatically loads the parameters of *datasource* specified in MyLeadScoring/***engine.json***, including *appName*, to `dsp`.

In ***engine.json***:

```
{
  ...
  "datasource": {
    "params" : {
      "appName": "MyApp1"
    }
  },
  ...
}
```

In `readTraining()`, `PEventStore` is an object which provides function to access data that is collected by PredictionIO Event Server.

This Lead Scoring Engine Template requires "view" and "buy" events with `sessionId` in event property.

`PEventStore.find(...)` specifies the events that you want to read. In this case, "user view page" and "user buy item" events are read and then each is mapped to tuple of (sessionId, event). The event are then "cogrouped" by sessionId to find out the information in the session, such as first page view (landing page view), and whether the user converts (buy event), to create a RDD of Session as TrainingData:

```scala
case class Session(
  landingPageId: String,
  referrerId: String,
  browser: String,
  buy: Boolean // buy or not
) extends Serializable

class TrainingData(
  val session: RDD[Session]
) extends Serializable

```

PredictionIO then passes the returned `TrainingData` object to *Data Preparator*.

NOTE: You could modify the DataSource to read other event other than the default **buy** if the definition of conversion is not "buy item" event.

### Data Preparator

In MyLeadScoring/src/main/scala/***Preparator.scala***, the `prepare` method
of class `Preparator` takes `TrainingData` as its input and performs any
necessary feature selection and data processing tasks. At the end, it returns
`PreparedData` which should contain the data *Algorithm* needs.

In this template, `prepare` will select the features from the Session object and convert them to the data required by the MLlib's RandomForest algorithm.

The `PreparedData` is defined as:

```scala
class PreparedData(
  val labeledPoints: RDD[LabeledPoint],
  val featureIndex: Map[String, Int],
  val featureCategoricalIntMap: Map[String, Map[String, Int]]
) extends Serializable
```

The `LabeledPoint` class is defined in Spark MLlib and it's required for the RandomForest Algorithm. The `featureIndex` is a Map of feature name to the position index in the feature vector. `featureCategoricalIntMap` is a Map of categorical feature name to the Map of categorical value map for this feature.

By default, the feature used for classification is "landingPage", "referrer" and "browser". Since these features contain categorical values, we need to create a map of categorical values to the integer values for the algorithm to use.

NOTE: You can customize the template to use other features.

For example, if the feature "landingPage" can be any of the following values: "page1", "page2", "page3", "page4". We can create a categorical Int value Map, such as:

```scala
Map(
  "page1" -> 0,
  "page2" -> 1,
  "page3" -> 2,
  "page4" -> 3
)
```

Instead of manually create such Map, a helper method `createCategoricalIntMap()` is defined in **Prepraator.scala** for this purpose.

Each `labeledPoint` is a label and a feature vector. The element index of the vector for the corresponding feature is defined by `featureIndex` Map. By default, it's defined as

```scala
val featureIndex = Map(
  "landingPage" -> 0,
  "referrer" -> 1,
  "browser" -> 2
)
```

which means that index 0 of the feature vector is the "landingPage" feature, index 1 is "referrer" feature, and so on.

The `prepare()` of the `Preparator` class first finds out all possible categorical values for the features and create a categorical Int map. Then it converts to the `Session` object to the `LabeledPoint` by creating the feature vector and the label. In this case, the label is 1 if there is any conversion and 0 if there is no conversion:

```scala
class Preparator extends PPreparator[TrainingData, PreparedData] {

  ...

  def prepare(sc: SparkContext, td: TrainingData): PreparedData = {

    // find out all values of the each feature
    val landingValues = td.session.map(_.landingPageId).distinct.collect
    val referrerValues = td.session.map(_.referrerId).distinct.collect
    val browserValues = td.session.map(_.browser).distinct.collect

    // map feature value to integer for each categorical feature
    val featureCategoricalIntMap = Map(
      "landingPage" -> createCategoricalIntMap(landingValues, ""),
      "referrer" -> createCategoricalIntMap(referrerValues, ""),
      "browser" -> createCategoricalIntMap(browserValues, "")
    )
    // index position of each feature in the vector
    val featureIndex = Map(
      "landingPage" -> 0,
      "referrer" -> 1,
      "browser" -> 2
    )

    // inject some default to cover default cases
    val defaults = Seq(
      new Session(
        landingPageId = "",
        referrerId = "",
        browser = "",
        buy = false
      ),
      new Session(
        landingPageId = "",
        referrerId = "",
        browser = "",
        buy = true
      ))

    val defaultRDD = sc.parallelize(defaults)
    val sessionRDD = td.session.union(defaultRDD)

    val labeledPoints: RDD[LabeledPoint] = sessionRDD.map { session =>
      logger.debug(s"${session}")
      val label = if (session.buy) 1.0 else 0.0

      val feature = new Array[Double](featureIndex.size)
      feature(featureIndex("landingPage")) =
        featureCategoricalIntMap("landingPage")(session.landingPageId).toDouble
      feature(featureIndex("referrer")) =
        featureCategoricalIntMap("referrer")(session.referrerId).toDouble
      feature(featureIndex("browser")) =
        featureCategoricalIntMap("browser")(session.browser).toDouble

      LabeledPoint(label, Vectors.dense(feature))
    }.cache()

    logger.debug(s"labelelPoints count: ${labeledPoints.count()}")
    new PreparedData(
      labeledPoints = labeledPoints,
      featureIndex = featureIndex,
      featureCategoricalIntMap = featureCategoricalIntMap)
  }
}
```

PredictionIO passes the returned `PreparedData` object to Algorithm's `train` function.

## Algorithm

In MyLeadScoring/src/main/scala/***ALSAlgorithm.scala***, the two methods of
the algorithm class are `train` and `predict`. `train` is responsible for
training the predictive model; `predict` is
responsible for using this model to make prediction.

The default algorithm is Spark's MLlib [RandomForest algorithm](https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/mllib-ensembles.html#random-forests).

### Algorithm parameters

The Algorithm takes the following parameters, as defined by the `AlgorithmParams` case class:

```scala
case class RFAlgorithmParams(
  numTrees: Int,
  featureSubsetStrategy: String,
  impurity: String,
  maxDepth: Int,
  maxBins: Int,
  seed: Option[Int]
) extends Params
```

You can find more description of the parameters in MLlib's [RandomForest documentation](https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/mllib-ensembles.html#random-forests) and [Decision Tree documentation](https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/mllib-decision-tree.html).

The values of these parameters can be specified in *algorithms* of
MyLeadScoring/***engine.json***:

```
{
  ...
  "algorithms": [
    {
      "name": "randomforest",
      "params": {
        "numClasses": 3,
        "numTrees": 5,
        "featureSubsetStrategy": "auto",
        "impurity": "variance",
        "maxDepth": 4,
        "maxBins": 100,
        "seed" : 12345
      }
    }
  ]
  ...
}
```

PredictionIO will automatically loads these values into the constructor of the `RFAlgorithm` class.

```scala
class RFAlgorithm(val ap: RFAlgorithmParams)
  extends P2LAlgorithm[PreparedData, RFModel, Query, PredictedResult] {
    ...
}
```

### train(...)

`train` is called when you run **pio train** to train a predictive model.

The algorithm first generates the `categoricalFeaturesInfo` which is required by the MLlib. This indicates how many categorical values for each categorical features. Then it calls `RandomForest.trainRegressor()` to train a `RandomForestModel` to predict the probability that the user may convert.

```scala

  def train(sc: SparkContext, pd: PreparedData): RFModel = {

    val categoricalFeaturesInfo = pd.featureCategoricalIntMap
      .map { case (f, m) =>
        (pd.featureIndex(f), m.size)
      }

    logger.info(s"categoricalFeaturesInfo: ${categoricalFeaturesInfo}")

    // use random seed if seed is not specified
    val seed = ap.seed.getOrElse(scala.util.Random.nextInt())

    val forestModel: RandomForestModel = RandomForest.trainRegressor(
      input = pd.labeledPoints,
      categoricalFeaturesInfo = categoricalFeaturesInfo,
      numTrees = ap.numTrees,
      featureSubsetStrategy = ap.featureSubsetStrategy,
      impurity = ap.impurity,
      maxDepth = ap.maxDepth,
      maxBins = ap.maxBins,
      seed = seed)

    new RFModel(
      forest = forestModel,
      featureIndex = pd.featureIndex,
      featureCategoricalIntMap = pd.featureCategoricalIntMap
    )
  }

```

PredictionIO will automatically store the returned model after training.

The `RFModel` stores the `RandomForestModel`, and the `featureIndex` and `featureCategoricalIntMap`:

```scala
class RFModel(
  val forest: RandomForestModel,
  val featureIndex: Map[String, Int],
  val featureCategoricalIntMap: Map[String, Map[String, Int]]
) extends Serializable {
  ...
}
```

### predict(...)

`predict` is called when you send a JSON query to
http://localhost:8000/queries.json. PredictionIO converts the query, such as '{ "landingPageId" : "example.com/page9", "referrerId" : "referrer10.com", "browser": "Firefox" }' to the `Query` class you defined previously in `Engine.scala`.

The `predict()` function does the following:

1. convert the Query to the required feature vector input
2. use the `RandomForestModel` to predict the probability of conversion given this feature.

```scala

  ...

  def predict(model: RFModel, query: Query): PredictedResult = {

    val featureIndex = model.featureIndex
    val featureCategoricalIntMap = model.featureCategoricalIntMap

    val landingPageId = query.landingPageId
    val referrerId = query.referrerId
    val browser = query.browser

    // look up categorical feature Int for landingPageId
    val landingFeature = lookupCategoricalInt(
      featureCategoricalIntMap = featureCategoricalIntMap,
      feature = "landingPage",
      value = landingPageId,
      default = ""
    ).toDouble


    // look up categorical feature Int for referrerId
    val referrerFeature = lookupCategoricalInt(
      featureCategoricalIntMap = featureCategoricalIntMap,
      feature = "referrer",
      value = referrerId,
      default = ""
    ).toDouble

    // look up categorical feature Int for brwoser
    val browserFeature = lookupCategoricalInt(
      featureCategoricalIntMap = featureCategoricalIntMap,
      feature = "browser",
      value = browser,
      default = ""
    ).toDouble

    // create feature Array
    val feature = new Array[Double](model.featureIndex.size)
    feature(featureIndex("landingPage")) = landingFeature
    feature(featureIndex("referrer")) = referrerFeature
    feature(featureIndex("browser")) = browserFeature

    val score = model.forest.predict(Vectors.dense(feature))
    new PredictedResult(score)
  }

  ...

```

PredictionIO passes the returned `PredictedResult` object to *Serving*.

## Serving

The `serve` method of class `Serving` processes predicted result. It is also
responsible for combining multiple predicted results into one if you have more
than one predictive model. *Serving* then returns the final predicted result.
PredictionIO will convert it to a JSON response automatically.

In MyLeadScoring/src/main/scala/***Serving.scala***,

```scala
class Serving extends LServing[Query, PredictedResult] {

  @transient lazy val logger = Logger[this.type]

  override
  def serve(query: Query,
    predictedResults: Seq[PredictedResult]): PredictedResult = {
    predictedResults.head
  }
}
```

When you send a JSON query to http://localhost:8000/queries.json,
`PredictedResult` from all models will be passed to `serve` as a sequence, i.e.
`Seq[PredictedResult]`.

NOTE: An engine can train multiple models if you specify more than one Algorithm
component in `object LeadScoringEngine` inside ***Engine.scala*** and  the corresponding parameters in ***engine.json***. Since only one algorithm is implemented by default, this `Seq` contains one element.