Is it possible to easily change the source (path) of an/multiple existing data source(s)

[Michiel van Schijndel]

Hi,

Within our business we are using a Spotfire Report that has one big Excel file with multiple sheets as its source data (which is actually a data export from a different tool/dashboard our users are maintaining). The Spotfire report is structured as such that we start with the first sheet of the mentioned Excel database and then add columns from the different sheets and perform different transformations, so basically all sheets of the Excel datasource are linked together into 1 big table which we use in our Spotfire Report. See example attached for reference.

 

As you can see all data sources are basically the same Excel file, just different sheets or settings maintained during the load. Now I was wondering if it's possible to easily change the data source (path) of all these different data sources. What happens is sometimes we updated our master tool/database where the Excel export is coming from, as a result the export file or location which functions as master source for our Spotfire report may change location, or name. The actual content does not change at all, just the name of the export file might change e.g. from CREDATA12.xlsx to for example CREDATA13.xlsx.

 

As up untill now I have always been manually changing the data source when that happens, but it's quite time consuming and I also always have to re-select the same load settings & column matching etc. manually and leaves a lot of room for errors. Is there a way to for example change the path of the source easily within the settings or so so that I could simply just update the load-path to 13 instead of 12 in this example and leave all other settings that didn't change untouched

 

Thanks in advance & Kind regards,

Michiel

[Ajinkya Gutti]

Hi Michiel,

There is a way to point Spotfire to the new file but that needs to be done for each sheet that you are importing. In this way Spotfire will only replace the sheets but all other load and join settings that you have will stay intact.

Please check image below.

1st Replace button will wipe out all the settings and start fresh

2nd replace button will just replace that sheet and keep settings intact

 

Best regards,

Ajinkya

[Fabian Duerr]

Why not just creating a master excel file, let's say CREDATA_MASTER.xlsx which is always a copy of the most recent file If you ever get CREDATA13,14,15 and so on you just save a copy of this file to CREDATA_MASTER. This ensures that you would also have a history of your excel sheets.

 

Set up all data load from this master file and you only have to reload the data with one click.