It is best practice to transform your data, including merging from multiple sources, before it arrives in your analysis tool. However, you might not have this facility or access to good data integration tools, or perhaps you just want to explore something quickly to follow an analytical hunch. Spotfire provides some easy-to-use and powerful data merging tools.

When merging data into an existing data table, the first thing you have to decide is whether you are adding new columns or new rows. Then, you must define how the data sets are related. If you are adding new columns of data, you must define the key columns in each table that link the two data sets uniquely for the columns you add. If you are adding new rows of data, you must match or map the column names.

When defining key columns and mapping columns, the names used in the two tables can be different as long as you know that their values and data types are equivalent.

Let's work through some examples...