If you make use of a vLookup functionality (Available to Guru users) to enrich your data, it might be necessary to update the reference data. For instance if changes have been made within the company, leaving the current set of data in the reference table outdated.

This article describes how to do that.

Table of contents:

What is a reference table?

A reference table is an import source to which the vLookup rule set up in your project can compare particular values. If a value in a particular column in a database matches, the relevant column in the import that you use as a reference table, it will map all the extra allocated data onto the project.

For more information about Setting up an vLookup Dynamic Rule, please read the Using a vLookup Dynamic Rule article.

The reference table can be seen as an create/change database rule, with more flexibility and especially useful for large amounts of data. It can also be used to make large scale corrections to historical data in a current dataset, based on unique identifiers within that set by making use of the "reversed vlookup" functionality.

For more information about Setting up a Reversed vLookup Dynamic Rule, please read the Using a Reversed vLookup Dynamic Rule article.

Steps to update the reference table

• Prepare your sample excel file by implementing all recent changes
• Go to the main menu of your portal and choose: "Data Garden > Sources"
• Choose "edit source" for the relevant import source you are using as the reference table
• In the screen that is now before you, move to the 3rd tab (File sources)
• Click on the grey bar to select the relevant file from your computer, or simply drag it onto the grey bar to import it
• The file will now automatically imported
• Check in the tab "log" if the file has indeed been read in properly. If it has failed, you can download the relevant log file to find out why.

Good to know

Please pay attention that the file you wish to import matches the requirements as set up in the "rules" tab. If it doesn't match these requirements, the import will fail and the data will not be processed.

Please note that the columns of your template file exactly match the columns of the import source. The columns need to have the exact same spelling and are case sensitive. Also the columns need to be in the exact same order.

The software has been set up in such a way that the latest import will automatically be used to update the corresponding data. It does this based on the automatically added import batch number. You can choose the add your new reference table to the source or to remove the old data from the import first, before importing the newest version.

If you have chosen your vLookup to update all historical data as well, instead of just updating new imports (Reversed Update After Dataset Changes checkbox in the vLookup rule is checked), all (historical) data in your database will be updated based on the new reference table.

Note: Emails as set up in the "send email" rule will NOT be resend, as the are only triggered by an action of a respondent.