When creating a Sheetgo automation you have two possible ways of merging data from multiple files into a single one. The first one is the Merge option, which will use the header as a guide and add all the data below it, filling the rows of the spreadsheet. But there's also a second way of merging data, which is called Left Join.

With this data processor, instead of using the header as a guide, you will combine data from two different spreadsheets based on a common field, known as a key. This type of join is particularly useful when you want to retain all records from the primary (left) table and add matched records from the secondary (right) table, while also including unmatched records from the left table with null values for the right table's columns.

The left join process allows you to merge data from spreadsheets horizontally, it has a similar behavior to the SQL join function, which means that it will connect the data from two spreadsheets using the unique values (key) as a guide. All spreadsheets that you are joining should have a column with the same unique values, although they don't have to be in the same order.

In the example below we will use column A (name) as the join column, which means that it needs to be present on all the spreadsheets we will join.

1. Start by creating a new Blank workflow and selecting to option to start from an automation.

2. Select multiple files

3. Select the files you will use. If your files have more than one tab, make sure you've selected the right ones to join.

4. Select the Left join process

5. From the dropdown menu choose which column will be used as reference for the join process. Remember that the column needs to be present on all spreadsheets and have unique values on it.

The dropdown menu will show the names of the columns as they appear on the first spreadsheet that was selected for the join process. If any data is not present in the column of the first spreadsheet, this information will not be transferred to the destination spreadsheet.

6. Select the destination spreadsheet. You can send your data to a single spreadsheet or multiple files. In our case, we are sending the data into one Google Sheet spreadsheet.

From here, you can either select an existing spreadsheet or create a new one as a destination. By default, Sheetgo will save a new spreadsheet on the root folder of the source documents. If you are creating a new spreadsheet, you must give it a name. Sheetgo will join all the data from the source files into a single tab. When you're done click Finish and save.

After the join process is completed you will have all the columns from your spreadsheet side by side on a new spreadsheet. In this example, our source files had three columns each, with Column A (name) being the join column. The destination spreadsheet has 5 columns joining the data from both source spreadsheets.

And since Thomas doesn't have a reference on the second spreadsheet he doesn't have data populated to columns D and E.

The Sheetgo Left join data processor is a powerful tool for merging datasets, ensuring that all records from your primary dataset are retained and enriched with relevant information from a secondary dataset. This enables more comprehensive data analysis and streamlined workflow automation.