Descriptive vs Diagnostic Analytics in Fabric Notebooks

DP-600 By islever Editorial Last updated

Short answer

B Creating column charts to show the distribution of retained and lost customers based on various attributes performs descriptive analytics.

Question

You have a Fabric tenant that contains customer churn data stored as Parquet files in OneLake. The data contains details about customer demographics and product usage. You create a Fabric notebook to read the data into a Spark DataFrame. You then create column charts in the notebook that show the distribution of retained customers as compared to lost customers based on geography, the number of products purchased, age, and customer tenure. Which type of analytics are you performing?
  1. diagnostic
  2. descriptive Correct Answer
  3. prescriptive
  4. predictive

Key Takeaways

The exam tests whether you can distinguish between summarizing data (descriptive) and explaining why it happened (diagnostic); the trap is assuming any multi-variable comparison implies diagnosis.

This question tests the distinction between descriptive and diagnostic analytics by analyzing a scenario where customer churn data is visualized. The correct approach identifies that creating charts to show distributions constitutes descriptive analytics, while investigating root causes would be diagnostic.

Common mistake: Many learners select Diagnostic because they see multiple variables being compared (geography, age, etc.) and assume this 'explains' the churn, but without explicit causal analysis or hypothesis testing, it remains descriptive.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Descriptive analytics focuses on summarizing historical data to answer 'what happened'. In this scenario, you are creating column charts to display the distribution of retained versus lost customers across different segments. This action visualizes the data landscape without attempting to determine the underlying reasons for the churn, which fits the definition of descriptive analytics perfectly.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Diagnostic analytics answers 'why did it happen' by investigating correlations and root causes; since the prompt only mentions displaying distributions and not analyzing causality, A is incorrect. Predictive analytics forecasts future outcomes based on trends, and prescriptive analytics suggests actions to take, neither of which are performed here. Therefore, C and D are also incorrect.

Community Comment Notes

Community consensus strongly favors Descriptive analytics, with most users noting that the scenario lacks explicit investigation into root causes. One user noted that "comparison = descriptive analytics," highlighting that simple segmentation does not equal diagnosis. Another user correctly pointed out that to be diagnostic, one would need to perform further analysis to find and explain the root causes of why customers are retained or lost.

Exam Strategy

Always look for keywords indicating intent: 'summarize', 'visualize', 'distribution' point to Descriptive. 'Why', 'root cause', 'correlation' point to Diagnostic. 'Forecast', 'predict' point to Predictive. 'Recommend', 'optimize' point to Prescriptive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn't comparing multiple factors considered diagnostic analytics?

Comparing factors describes 'what' is happening across segments. Diagnostic analytics requires actively investigating 'why' those differences exist through causal analysis.

What is the key difference between descriptive and diagnostic analytics?

Descriptive summarizes historical data to show trends and distributions. Diagnostic analyzes that data to identify root causes and reasons behind those trends.

More DP-600 FAQ →

Community Votes

B
78%
A
22%

78% of anonymous learners picked answer B. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 16 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 16

  1. hello2tomoki 👍 18 Answered B
    Descriptive analytics tells what happened in the past, presenting it as numbers and visuals in reports and dashboards. Diagnostic analytics gives the reason why something happened. Predictive analytics determines the potential outcomes of present and past actions and trends. Prescriptive analytics offers decision support for the best course of action. Given the scenario in the question where data is read into a Spark DataFrame and column charts are created to show the distribution of retained customers compared to lost customers based on various factors, this falls under the definition of descriptive analytics. No future predictions or prescriptions are made, nor are reasons for the past events provided. Final Answer: The type of analytics being performed in the scenario described is descriptive analytics. https://www.selecthub.com/business-intelligence/predictive-descriptive-prescriptive-analytics/
  2. parx 👍 3 Answered A
    https://azure.microsoft.com/es-es/blog/answering-whats-happening-whys-happening-and-what-will-happen-with-iot-analytics/ contains text "Examine data from multiple angles to understand why something is happening." for Diagnostic. In this case we are looking at data from multiple angles.
  3. slu239 👍 3 Answered B
    Compare retained customers vs. lost customers based on geography, the number of products purchased, age, and customer tenure cannot tell us why customer churn. Factors like time spent on customer service, customer satisfaction rate will be more ... will be more effective.
  4. THC1138 👍 3 Answered B
    Descriptive - it's just describing the customers, not saying why they stayed or left
  5. lander_carlson 👍 2 Answered B
    The analysis is primarily descriptive because it summarizes and visualizes the distribution of retained versus lost customers based on various factors. However, it can also be considered diagnostic if you use these visualizations to identify patterns and investigate the reasons behind customer churn, such as higher churn rates in specific age groups or regions. Thus, it serves both to describe the data and to diagnose underlying issues. I believe in the exam; it is possible to dispute questions with answers that contain two possible solutions, so don't worry too much about this question.
Show 11 more comments
  1. arrow040 👍 2 Answered B
    The analysis focuses on displaying data distributions, which aligns with descriptive analytics. To classify the work as diagnostic analytics, you would need to perform further analysis to find and explain the root causes of why customers are retained or lost (e.g., identifying specific correlations or using statistical tests to validate contributing factors).
  2. SKN08 👍 2 Answered A
    For me this is a diagnostic analysis, since we try to evaluate the root cause of churn (i.e. loosing customers).
  3. 282b85d 👍 1
    The creation of column charts to show the distribution of retained and lost customers based on various attributes is aimed at summarizing and visualizing historical data, which aligns with the principles of descriptive analytics. This is not enough to determine why something happened. It involves analyzing data to identify causes and correlations (Diagnostic Analytics).
  4. bigdave987 👍 1 Answered B
    sounds like B - descriptive analytics to me. comparing one metric against another by different categories. I cannot see that we are saying "why" did something happen, which means it would not be A
  5. Henry_01 👍 1 Answered B
    the terms as compared in the phrase tell use it is a descriptive comparaison : show the distribution. of retained customers as compared to lost customers based on geography,
  6. dp600 👍 1 Answered A
    I think that this chart tries to show why people are leaving, so I would go with A diagnostic
  7. nappi1 👍 1 Answered B
    comparison = descriptive analytics
  8. Nefirs 👍 1 Answered A
    A, diagnostic - why did it happen
  9. andrewkravchuk97 👍 2 Answered A
    A. diagnostic
  10. d2326a4 👍 1 Answered B
    Verified by ChatGPT
  11. ItsMompo 👍 1
    B. descriptive

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