How to link data in Spotfire

A core feature of Spotfire is the seamless way in which you can interact with multiple visualizations based on multiple data tables. Be patient, we will move on to the visualization part soon, in Chapter 2, Visualize This!. First, you must learn the key technique to link or relate different tables.

We are going to relate the player data table, where each row in the data represents an individual baseball player, with the team data table, where each row represents a baseball team. The obvious link is the team name, so that is how we will relate the two tables. Once related, the single row for, say, team Detroit in table 2 will be linked to the nine rows for team Detroit in table 1.

Table relations are defined in the analysis file's Data Table Properties.

Another way to relate data in Spotfire is column matching, which is used to determine how multiple tables should be treated when used alongside each other in the same visualization. Spotfire will automatically match columns with the same name, regardless of whether you defined any relationship between the two tables.

You can override Spotfire or add new column matches by performing the following steps.