Matillion Academy: Working With Different Variables in Matillion ETL

A key component of making data useful is providing the foundation for analytics using unique identifiers, such as variables, to quickly parameterize your data integration projects. Variables are name-value pairs stored within each environment of your data integration platform. Variables can be used in many different parameters and expressions to allow the user to pass and centralize environment-specific configuration. In Matillion, they are also easily accessible through Python and Bash scripts where they are substituted in at run time.

In our latest course on Matillion Academy, you can expand your knowledge of our Matillion ETL tool and learn to work with Automatic, Job, Grid, and Environment variables in the product. Some experience working with variables in Matillion ETL is required, but not essential. 

This course will teach you all of the variables that can be created in Matillion ETL to fuel your data integration workflows; how to set values and configuration options; and the best practices for using variables inside your Matillion ETL jobs.

Variable types in Matillion ETL

• Automatic variables – Already created in the Matillion account by default, and available without needing to be defined. These are metadata-driven variables.

• Job variables – Defined within the scope of a single job. Job variables are always included in jobs that are imported or exported, and are not available for optional inclusion like environment variables are.

• Grid variables – Allow the user to define key-value pairs in an array fashion. Think of these as a type of table that can be passed as a variable. They are especially valuable when dynamically iterating over Matillion components.

• Environment variables – A name:value pair that is created in, and can be used across, the Matillion ETL product.  This type of variable can have a different default value set depending on the environment. This means that the value can be dependent on the account to which the user is connected.

Start learning today

This course is available now at your own pace on Matillion Academy. Make sure to follow along in your Matillion ETL instance for an interactive, hands-on experience.

You can find all of the available certification courses for Matillion Academy here, including Building a Data warehouse, Migration, Working with Semi-Structured Data, and Matillion API. 

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