Compare tables

When you have two tables and you want to find their overlap, their difference, and other relations, you can use the table helper compare tables (advanced filter).

The helper takes two tables, Table 1 and Table 2, and finds the items in Table 1 that make the comparison conditions true.

Finding the overlap between two tables

Let's say you have two tables of people. The first table includes people's names, emails, and favorite foods.

Name	Email	Favorite food
Guest A	[e-mail]	Apple
Guest B	[e-mail]	Banana
Guest C	[e-mail]	Cashew
Guest D	[e-mail]	Donut
Guest E	[e-mail]	Eggs
Guest F	[e-mail]	Fries

The second table includes event attendees' names and emails.

Event attendee	Email
Guest A	[e-mail]
Guest B	[e-mail]

Now, you want to find every item in Table 1 whose value in the Name column matches some item in Table 2 in the Event attendee column – maybe you want to get the event attendees' favorite foods for the event.

Add the Compare tables (advanced filter) helper.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Insert the first table as Table 1 and the second table as Table 2

2. In the comparison condition builder, create the following condition: "Find all items in table 1 whose value in column Name is some item's value in table 2, column Event attendee"

3. (Optional) If it's possible that one of the event attendees has the same name as another person on the contact list, add the following second condition: "…and whose value in column Email is some item's value in table 2, column Email"

Applied to the tables above, the result is a table with two items:

Name	Email	Favorite food
Guest A	[e-mail]	Apple
Guest B	[e-mail]	Banana

Finding the difference between two tables

Let's say you have two tables of people. The first table has the names of invitees to an event and their emails.

Event invitee	Email
Guest A	[e-mail]
Guest B	[e-mail]
Guest C	[e-mail]
Guest D	[e-mail]

The second table has the confirmed attendees' names and emails.

Confirmed attendee	Email
Guest A	[e-mail]
Guest B	[e-mail]

You want to find the invitees who are not confirmed attendees – maybe you want to send them a reminder.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Insert the first table as Table 1 and the second table as Table 2

2. In the comparison condition builder, create the following condition: "Find all items in table 1 whose value in column Event invitee is not all items' values in table 2, column Confirmed attendee"

3. (Optional) If it's possible that one of the confirmed attendees has the same name as another person on list of invitees, add the following second condition: "…and whose value in column Email is not all items' values in table 2, column Email"

Applied to the tables above, the result is a table with two items:

Event invitee	Email
Guest C	[e-mail]
Guest D	[e-mail]

Find items whose value in a column contains every value in another table's column

Let's say you have two tables. The first table is a database of service providers and their services:

Service provider	Services
Company A	Cleaning, cooking, painting
Company B	Cooking, painting
Company C	Painting
Company D	Cleaning, cooking, washing

The second table is a list of services that a customer selected in a dropdown:

Selected services
Cooking
Painting

You want to find the service providers who provide every selected service.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Insert the first table as Table 1 and the second table as Table 2

2. In the comparison condition builder, create the following condition: "Find all items in table 1 whose value in column Services contains all items' values in table 2, column Selected services"

Applied to the tables above, the result is a table with two service providers:

Service provider	Services
Company A	Cleaning, cooking, painting
Company B	Cooking, painting

Only these two service providers have values in the column Services that contain both "cooking" and "painting".