Menu Bar Options
In addition to making it a painless process to create a New Convert, the BettrData.io Builder also offers several options in the menu bar that can help complete an accurate build.
Save
The Save button becomes active whenever there are unsaved changes. Click Save to store the current convert configuration.
Undo
This option is enabled whenever changes to the builder have been made and when selected will remove the changes and return the builder to its previous state.
View
In the View menu dropdown there are several options that include:
General
- File Info - when selected will give you the current File Name, Byte Size and Record Count.
- Hide Spaces / Show Spaces - This option provides the ability to view available character spacing for each of the columns’ output fields enabling better management of character width, reducing the likelihood of truncation. Click the option again to hide the spaces. Notice that the fixed length mono font makes it easy to view evenly defined characters and spaces.
Columns
- Show Hidden – Displays all hidden fields, including those that are mapped (highlighted in purple) and unmapped (shown in white).
- Hide Unmapped – Hides any fields that are not mapped.
- Clear Filters – Removes any filters applied using the field filter icon to filter on specific characters in a field.
Profile Data
- Show / Hide - Select this option to display parse text. To close the parse text, click the Show/Hide menu option again.
View Mode
From the View menu, you can change the Main column display to review the Code, view a Summary, or inspect the JSON for this Builder. To return to the default column view, select Main from the View Mode menu.
Show Samples
To change the number of sample rows that display on the page, select a number count from Show Samples
Parse
Under the Parse menu, Build and Safe are available options.
- Build
- Safe
Selecting this option will take header data from the input file and wipe out an existing convert if there is one including all settings so that you can begin a build fresh.
When Safe is selected, the data in the table will re-display but existing settings and the convert configuration itself will not be touched.
Profile
The maximum number of records that can be profiled is 2 million.
To generate a field distribution report with both the General Field info and the Field Profile:
- Click the Profile Field Toggle icon in the column you want to profile. Click Save afterwards.
- By default, the toggle is off. If it remains unselected, the profile field will not be included in the report.
- From the Profile menu, select the percentage of records you want to review.
- Click the Information icon at the top of the column.
- The field distribution report will appear, showing the Value, Count, and Percent for both the General Field Info and Field Profile.
Defaults
Use the Defaults feature to create new fields for the output file that aren't present in the input, or to assign default values when input fields are blank.
For example, if the input includes a field called gender, and some values are missing, you can set a default value of Unknown. This ensures that every blank gender field in the output will be populated with Unknown.
Click on Defaults in the menu bar. The Defaults screen will display.
Click the Add button. Then select a Field to Default and enter a Value. To enter additional defaults, click the Add button again. Then click Close.
The number of created defaults will now display next to the Defaults menu. Click the trashcan next to the added default field to delete.
Code
Selecting Code from the menu bar opens the Code Override screen, where you can apply custom logic such as if statements or lookup tables. Note that the Code shows 0 Code Overrides.
Once you click on Code in the menu bar the number will change to 1.
If you don't plan to use the Code Override, click Delete to remove it and avoid unnecessary performance impact.
Header
- Drop
- Validation
Selecting the Drop option from the Header menu will exclude the first row of the file from the output. Once enabled, a ‘1’ will appear in the menu, indicating that one header line will be dropped.
If the input file contains multiple header lines, you can increase this number to drop additional lines. Set the value to 0 to retain all header records.
Enabling the Validation option instructs the system to verify whether the label line matches the header of the first incoming delimited data file.
Note: This feature does not support fixed-length positional files.
If the original label has been changed, the field will highlight in red and an error will display in Convert Issues under the red icon.
To resolve a header inconsistency, update the label line as needed and click Save.
If you want to keep the current label line changes and enable file conversion, disable the Header Validation option and click Save. This will remove the red highlight and clear the associated error.
Header Validation can be set up as the default from Administration > System Settings > Conversion.
Note: Modifying the label line does not impact the actual data in the file.
Convert
The Convert dropdown menu includes options for Enabled, MultiLine, Drop Empty Records, Duplicate and Run options.
- Enabled
- MultiLine
- Drop Empty Records
- Convert to Template
- Set Description
- Duplicate
- Run
Selecting this Convert menu option enables automatic file conversion.
If Enabled is turned off, the file will remain in Waiting to Convert status until the switch is turned on or the file is manually converted.
There are cases where you may want to keep Auto Convert disabled—for example, if you're still configuring or validating the file and aren't ready to begin conversion.
When Auto Convert is enabled, the system will skip the Waiting to Convert stage and immediately move the file into the Converting stage of the workflow.
This feature is useful when converted records contain multiple embedded end-of-line characters.
For example, a file expected to have 5 lines may incorrectly produce 7 due to embedded line breaks. This results in the error:
“Maximum threshold not met for Error: PARSE FIELDS LESS THAN EXPECTED”
on 4 records, with all 7 records being output despite the inconsistency.
When the MultiLine feature is enabled for the convert, the system reads the file byte by byte to detect and correct embedded end-of-line errors, resulting in the correct output of 5 records.
Note: Enabling this feature may impact performance and is not supported for fixed-length files.
This menu option will remove rows where the entire column contains NO data and all cells are BLANK.
A template can be created from the convert. To do this, create a client and set as template.
This feature allows you to add a description to help easily identify the convert.
This menu option will duplicate the file and allow you to Change Owner or Change Qualifier.
Selecting Run from the Convert menu will display the Run Convert screen so that you can use the selected Output Schema to transform the selected file to it’s desired output format.