What a recipe is
A recipe stores the steps and match rules you reuse each period, without the row data.
By TidyRecon · updated 28 October 2026
Orders to shipments
| Files | orders, shipments |
| Steps | Trim Name, Upper-case Name |
| Match on | Name = Order Number |
| Amount tolerance | 0.01 |
| Fingerprint | a3f09c1e… |
What it holds
- Files
- A slot for each export and the columns it must have.
- Steps
- Every cleaning step, in order: trim, case, replace, split, rename, fill down, filter.
- Match rules
- The key columns and how close is close enough: exact, a similarity score, an amount tolerance or a date window.
- Fingerprint
- A hash of all of the above, so you can tell two versions apart.
What it never holds
No rows, no cells, no file names. A recipe is a few kilobytes of rules. You can send one to a colleague without sending a single order.
How a rerun uses it
- You drop this period's exports into the slots.
- The recipe checks each file still has the columns it expects. If one was renamed, it stops and names it.
- The steps run on the new rows, then the match rules.
- Rows still open from last period are compared again. The ones that now match close; the rest show how many days they have been open.
February rerun
| Open item | Since | Age |
|---|---|---|
| SO-0998 | 2024-01-02 | 58days |
| SO-1007 | 2024-01-15 | 45days |
| SO-1009 | 2024-01-27 | closed 2024-02-03 |
| SO-1011 | 2024-01-30 | closed 2024-02-06 |
Versions
Saving a changed recipe keeps the old one. When a supplier changes their export, you can compare this month's version with last month's and step back if the change was wrong.
Version 2 against version 1
| Steps | + Upper-case Name |
| Match rules | unchanged |
Previous version
