Enabling the new data wrangling features in analysis files created in previous Spotfire versions

Introduction

I have recived feeback from long time customers that have upgraded to more recent Spotfire releases. They have found that when they open certain existing analysis files the new data wrangling features in the Source View are not available. However, the features are available when they create analysis files from scratch in the new Spotfire release.

This article will explain how to enable the new data wrangling and editing features for existing files. Issues are often related to how data is loaded and embedded/stored in your analysis file.

Prerequisites

Chances are good that you can enable the new data wrangling features. However, you will not be able to enable them if your data table uses:

• Clipboard data.
• Frozen columns.

Enabling data wrangling and editing features

First, check if you have enabled the Embedded in analysis option in Data Table Properties. If so, you need to stop using this option.

The image below shows the option you should stop using:

The image below shows the result of using this option. No editing capabilites are available:

This doesn't mean that we cannot work with embedded data. We just need to embed data in each data source and not in the final data table. The procedure below explains how to reconfigure your data table and its data sources. Repeat this procedure for each data table in your analysis file.

1. Make sure you have access to your data sources and that it's feasible to reload potentially large data at this time. You may need to be on your corporate network and have access to file shares or local files.

2. Switch to Linked (individual settings per source) in the Data Table Properties dialog and click OK.

Note: If you can't switch to Linked (individual settings per source) you may need to refresh the data table first using the same dialog.

3. Select your data table in the data panel drop-down list (only if you have multiple data tables) and open the Source View by expanding the data panel.

4. Select your data source and click on the lower part of it to open the data loading settings menu.

5. Select Stored data if you would like data to be embedded and reloaded manually. Select New data when possible to automatically reload data when your data source is available but keep a stored copy of your data that's used when the data source is not available.

6. Use the same menu again to reload your data by selecting the two arrows button. You could also save, close and open the analysis file again.

7. Done. You should now be able to edit data transformations, edit add rows operations and much more.

Note: Data functions data is always "stored" or cached in the analysis when you close it to allow you to open the file quickly. Configure your data function for "manual update" so that you can decide yourself when to reload data.

Note: It's easy to overview that you have set the correct loading type on each data source. In the Save dialog, you can review and change data loading settings:

The last option allows you to change the data loading type on all data sources at the same time.