GETTING STARTED | KNIME TIPS | KNIME ANALYTICS PLATFORM
My Top KNIME Tips — Part 2
Tips and tricks to help you KNIME better
Hello, I am back with more KNIME tips.
If you missed part 1, you can find it here.
Update All Components
I use components a lot, and there are often instances where I use the same component several times in a workflow. KNIME is pretty good at detecting when your component’s source has changed, and then prompting you to update your instances. However, sometimes you need to initiate the update yourself, and if you have multiples components, right clicking each and checking for updates can be time consuming.
There is a better way to handle all updates at once! Click on “Node” in the tip left menu bar, then select “Update Metanode Links”. Follow the prompts to update all the components in your workflow.
Column Expressions Nodes
If you do a lot a data prep, you very well might find yourself buried in nodes. Luckily, with the Column Expressions node you can do several operations in a single node. Here is a video from the KNIMETV about this node.
Read in Multiple Flat Files at Once
You can read multiple files in one go by checking the ‘files in folder’ option in the configuration dialogue box. You can even narrow down which files to read in by configuring ‘filter options’. This works for the Excel, CSV, and File Reader nodes.
Table Creator Node
If you need to quickly create a dataset for your workflow, you can use the Table Creator node.
I often use the node to create replacements for a list of strings or create a string that I will then use as a flow variable later in my workflow.
Row to Column Header
This node is only available with more recent releases of KNIME and it allows you to use a given row as the column headers for your data. This node is especially useful when you have super messy data, and you cannot simply identify the column header row in your file reader node.
Workflow Coach
I have been using KNIME for a few years now, and I still discover new and super useful nodes thanks to the Workflow Coach. The Workflow Coach uses some nice analytics from the KNIME community to recommend likely nodes based on the sequential node selections of a myriad of fellow KNIME users. I find this particularly useful when using node groups I am unfamiliar with. For instance, when I was first getting acquainted with the network analysis nodes, having these suggestions helped me figure out the next step and enabled me to build a successful network analysis use case.
If you do not see the Workflow Coach, select it from the view options.
You may also need to enable suggestions and updates from your preferences:
That’s all for now! I might be back with a part 3😁
Happy KNIMEing!
