Advanced use of the Data Prep tool
As you dive into more complex and powerful usage of the Data Prep tool, you will begin with one of the most common requirements for the ETL process—data joins.
The ETL Process
ETL is a data integration process that encompasses three distinct but interrelated steps (extract, transform and load) and is used to synthesize data from multiple sources many times to build a dataset that reflects business rules and meets analysis requirements.
Diving into data joins
We looked briefly at joining and augmenting your data in Chapter 4, Building Data Recipes. In this section, we will dive much deeper into this important area of data transformation. First, let's begin by understanding the various types of data joins.
Understanding the various types of joins
There are four common ways to join your data, as seen in the following diagram: