Reloading data

If you know that the data sources used in your analysis are refreshed often and you want to make sure you view the absolutely latest data, you can reload data during a session, without having to reopen the analysis.

Use the following steps to reload most data tables in your analysis simultaneously. If you only want to reload a particular data source, see Reloading data for a single data source instead.

Prerequisites

You must have some data loaded in the analysis. To reload data from all possible data sources you need access to Spotfire Business Author. If you only have access to Spotfire Consumer or if the analysis is in Viewing mode, you cannot reload data from data sources using stored data or top-level embedded data, only linked data.
Note: If you are an author and it is important that the analysis should contain specific data, then you might want to break the link to the original source to prevent others from reloading data unintentionally.

Procedure

  • On the menu bar, select Data and one of the reload options below:
    • Reload linked data – All linked data with the data loading settings 'Always new data' or 'New data when possible' will be updated. However, linked data sources that have data loading set to Stored data will not be reloaded using this procedure.
    • Reload all data – All data that is possible to reload will be reloaded, including linked data with data loading set to 'Stored data' and embedded data from sources that are possible to reload (provided that the source is available). If you have a data source with data from the clipboard, or, if you have frozen some columns in an embedded data table, the data table cannot be reloaded at all. See below for more information about embedded data. This option is only available to authors.
      Note: Reloading all data tables may take a long time if one or more data tables are very big. If data is saved linked, you can select exactly which part of a data table to reload instead.
    Note: If an analysis has been configured to use scheduled updates, you will not be able to reload linked data. Scheduled updates are normally used to save time for end users by downloading the latest data before anyone needs it. Such analyses often contain large amounts of data which should not be reloaded randomly. Read more about scheduled updates in the Spotfire Server Installation and Administration Help.

Embedded data

When configuring an analysis using Spotfire Analyst, it is possible to embed all data in the analysis so that the analysis file is self-contained with data and possible to use offline. Embedded data captures a snapshot of the final data table in the analysis file. When data is saved embedded, you cannot reload different parts of the data table separately, as in the linked case. However, the Reload all data option can be used to reload data from the original data source, provided that this source is available. This means that the embedded data may not necessarily be fixed and unchanged during the lifetime of an analysis. If a reload is done, then the latest data from the original source is fetched into the analysis. Hence, the analysis will contain a snapshot of the data from the latest time of reload and save. Simply opening an analysis with embedded data will not cause a reload of the data.

Tip: If you have a data source in your data table that you currently cannot reload, you might be able to recreate a link by replacing the data source with another source (e.g., not clipboard data).

See also Load methods.