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Varicent ELT Assistant

Most Common

Use the Most Common tool to reduce the number of unique values in a data set. Keeps the top common values in any number of selected columns. Changes the remaining values to a label you specify. Use when you want to reduce the number of unique values in a data set.

Input

The Most Common tool requires one data input.

Configuration

Use the following configuration options to configure the Most Common tool.

Configuring the Most Common tool

  1. Go to the Pipes module from the side navigation bar.

  2. From the Pipes tab, click an existing pipe to open, or create a new pipe. To create a new pipe, read the Creating a pipe documentation.

  3. In the Pipe builder, add a data source to your pipe. For more information on adding a data source, see the Data Input tool.Data Input

  4. Click symon_add_icon.png + Tool.

    The Tools modal opens, where you can add tools, such as the  Aggregate  tool, to your pipe.

  5. In the Tools modal, search for Most Common and then click + Add Tool.

    Tip

    You can also find the Most Common tool in the Organize section.

  6. Click the tool node and drag the line to the next tool to connect the tools. If you need to undo the action, click the line and then click Unlink.

  7. In the configuration pane, under Columns, select the text column to find common values. The Most Common tool only uses text strings.

    Tip

    You can select multiple text columns.

  8. Under Amount of values, enter the amount of values that you need, or click the arrows to increase or decrease the number.

  9. Under Other label, enter a label for remaining values other than those that you specify. For example, if you have a column called Product Category, and use the Amount of values as 2 for the two most common values, you could create the Other label as Others to capture other types of uncommon values.

Usage example

Let's say you had a data set with 10 unique values in a column. If you type 5 in the Amount of values field, the tool keeps all records for the five most common values. Any values outside of the top five are changed to the new value you type in the Other label field.