Append

The Tabular Append tool allows you to join two datasets together that may represent the same data, but covering different areas. In this way, you can for example bring two state-wide files together, allowing you to treat them as the same data file, rather than as two separate states. It is very useful to ensure that the data granularity within the two datasets are the same level of aggregation, for example, merging two datasets that have SA2s as their individual rows, rather than an SA2 and SA3.

In setting up a join we simply specify which of our two tables we will append together

To show the Tabular Inner Join tool in use we will combine datasets from the Perth

• Select Perth – South East SA4 (SA4/506) as your area
• Select SA2 Housing and Transport as your dataset, and select Mortgage Stress – Percent as your variable
• Select Perth – South West SA4 (SA4/507) as your area
• Select SA2 Housing and Transport as your dataset, and select Mortgage Stress – Percent as your variable

Open the Tabular Append tool (Tools → Data Manipulation → Tabular Inner Join) and enter the parameters as shown in the image below. In this instance, we simply select the two SA2 Housing and Transport datasets, renamed to distinguish which SA4 within Perth they represent, and click Add and Run:

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Once you have run your tabular inner join, click the Display button on the pop-up dialogue box that appears to view your joined data (it should look something like the image below). It will appear in your data panel named Output: append XXX. It is a very good idea to rename this to something more meaningful, as more often than not it will be this dataset which will be used in most of your subsequent work.

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