Better way to refresh imported columns?

Question

I have a table in spotfire with a couple columns imported from another table as a lookup. As an example, Col2 is used to match for the import of ImportedCol:

+------+------+-------------+
| Col1 | Col2 | ImportedCol |
+------+------+-------------+
|    1 | A    | Val1        |
|    2 | B    | Val2        |
|    3 | A    | Val1        |
|    4 | C    | Val3        |
|    5 | B    | Val2        |
|    6 | A    | Val1        |
|    7 | D    | Val4        |
+------+------+-------------+

However, the data in Col2 is subject to change. In that event, I need ImportedCol to change with it, however Spotfire seems to just keep the old imported data. Right now I've been deleting the imported column and re-adding it to refresh the link. Is there a way to dynamically import the data as the document loads or with any refresh of the information links?

Resh

In my experience it does refresh dynamically... Have you made certain that the data table itself is not embedded but still linked to source? You can check that under Edit -> Data Table Properties. If you have circular dependencies it will force embedding as well for what it is worth. – Cranage

@Cranage One table is linked (the table I'm importing to), the other is embedded (the table I'm importing from). I need the second table embedded for portability, as it's source is a local file on my machine. Even when manually refreshing data, the imported columns remain unchanged. I've even gone so far as to close and re-open the analysis after manually changing and refreshing the tables. – Resh

@Cranage to elaborate, the data in the second table is updating properly, but the equivalent columns in the first table is not. – Resh

Answer 1

I found the issue.

Turns out that pivoting on data in the same table creates a circular reference which overrides the embed/link setting on that table. My workaround was to make the pivot as its own information link, then have the table join the original link and the new pivot one.

Resh

Answer 2

I have found that this happens sometimes although I'm not exactly sure how to explain why. my workaround is to create "virtual" data tables based on your existing ones.

consider your linked table as A and your embedded table as B. start from a default state -- that is, before importing any columns.

add a new data table. the source for this table should be "From Current Analysis" and using A. we will consider this one as C, and it becomes your main data table, and C will update when any changes are made to A or B.

to illustrate:

Slyviasm