Minitab Automation: Simple Instructions

Minitab Automation
notes by Mike Kruger October 2009
This tab describes how to enter command scripts into Minitab. [Unless you use the Minitab statistical package, these won’t be of interest.]
This is particularly useful if you have tried one set of parameters and
want to vary them in some way.  We will use as an example
a run of Winters smoothing (in the Time Series Analysis section).
Minitab calculates basis a set of input parameters, but does not have an option to
optimize those parameters.  One can do a simple "by hand" investigation of the
space by typing in various combinations of parameters, but that gets tedious.
Let's see how we can automate this.
1. In Minitab, find where the commands are.
From the top menu ribbon, choose
	Window	Session
Enable commands to be entered (you'll need this later)
From the top menu ribbon, choose
	Editor	Enable Commands
(should end with a check mark next to Enable Commands)
Find the commands that you want to modify
From the top menu ribbon, choose
	Window	Project Manager
Open "History" at the left. You will see a set of commands.
Figure out which ones you want. For our example, these are
	TSWint 'TheGapSales' 4;
	Weight 0.2 0.2 0.2;
	First 1.
which describe a single run of Winters smoothing.
A full discussion of Minitab commands is well beyond what I intend
to cover!!! But note the semicolons at the end of intermediate lines.
2. Make additional copies of these commands
Paste these in a text editor, or in Excel.
Make additional copies as desired. You may want to change the
parameters; you may want to change the independent or dependent
variables in the model; you are limited only by what Minitab will do.
If you are good in Excel, you can automate some of this parameter
generation.  The final result should look like what you just had, only
more so. For example:
	TSWint 'TheGapSales' 4;
	Weight .2 .2 .1 ;
	First 1.
	TSWint 'TheGapSales' 4;
	Weight .2 .2 .2 ;
	First 1.
	TSWint 'TheGapSales' 4;
	Weight .2 .2 .3 ;
	First 1.
This runs Winters smoothing 3 times, with different values for the
third parameter.
Copy the lines you want to run.
3. Copy these commands back into Minitab and run them.
From the top menu ribbon, choose
	Window	Session
On the last line of the session, you should see
	MTB >
Move the cursor to the end of this line, and paste you lines in.
Hit the "Enter" key.
Output will result.