A business intelligence analyst is creating an employee retention dashboard that looks at data from the last five years. The analyst is interested in identifying patterns that can be studied…

Predictive analytics uses historical data to forecast future outcomes or trends, such as predicting future retention rates, which goes beyond just identifying past patterns.

Prescriptive analytics recommends specific actions to achieve desired outcomes, based on predictions and diagnostic insights, guiding what should be done but not solely identifying past patterns.

Diagnostic analytics focuses on understanding the root causes of past events by drilling down into data to identify patterns, anomalies, and correlations, which is essential for understanding why employee retention trends are occurring over five years.

Descriptive analytics summarizes past data to provide a general overview of what has happened, but it does not deeply explain why the patterns exist or allow for further study of their causes.