In Spotfire it is possible to reuse the visualizations, calculations and setup from a previously created document with new data, as long as the new data is reasonably similar to the old data. This is useful when creating an analysis for, say, sales figures for a certain month. You create a full analysis using the data from January, set up visualizations, calculations, etc., and save the file. When the sales figures for February are available, you can open the same file again, and replace the data from January with the data from February, and the visualizations will be updated. This of course requires that the data table for February is structured in the same way as for January, using the same column names and format.
To replace with new data table:
Select File > Replace Data Table....
Response: The Replace Data Table dialog is opened.
Select the data table you wish to replace.
Select Source to replace with by clicking on the Select button and selecting the source of your choice.
Response: Depending on which option you have selected, you are provided with some means to choose what data to open. See Opening a Text File, Opening an Excel File, Opening a SAS File, Opening an Information Link, Adding Data Connections to an Analysis, or Opening Data from a Database for more information about each alternative.
Depending on the selected source you may be able to specify a load method (data connections) or whether to load data on demand (data connections and information links).
For some data sources you can also apply transformations (optional). See Transforming Data to learn more.
Click OK.
Response: If the new data table contains columns that match the columns in the old data table completely, the analysis is immediately updated to use the new data. However, if some columns used in the analysis could not be replaced automatically by columns in the new data table, you will be presented with the Replace Data – Match Columns dialog. Here, you can match columns from the current data table with columns from the new data table. If there are missing columns remaining after you have matched columns, the Replace Data – Missing Columns dialog is shown. The dialog will state all mismatches that still occur. Make a note of these and click Close. The data is replaced, but you may need to make some manual fixes to make sure all visualizations are displayed as you intended.
If necessary, update any visualizations, calculations, or hierarchies that were broken when the data was replaced.
See also: