Unique not being Unique

Good Morning All,

Simple one this, basically I am trying to get unique names that haven't appeared on the register every day I run the register, so basically if that person has appeared before, it shouldn't appear. My normal register is about 3000 lines long every day, but i can recreate the problem just the following lines....

Data:

Surname	First Name	Date
SPINK	Bob	01/Dec/22
SPINK	Bob	02/Dec/22
SPINK	Bob	03/Dec/22
SMITH	James	03/Dec/22

Workflow:

However, this gives me as Unique:

Should only be SMITH? Why???

Thank you

Bob

Developer

Accepted answers

Felipe_Ribeir0

Hi @Bobbins

If i understood well you need that only names that never showed before to show up when you run the workflow, right? Here is one way of doing this.

The unique tool will keep unique ocurrences of the row, so if you look at your workflow you have this. 1 row for Bob and 1 row for James, the tool is doing exactly what it was supposed to do (if you remove duplicates on excel it would give you the same result). You need this last piece to make what you need.

Unique not being Unique.yxmd

davidskaife

Hi @Bobbins

The Unique Tool doesn't work in the way you're wanting it to; it will find the unique instance of EVERY Surname, hence why you're getting both come through.

I think you need to try something like this:

Count the number of times the name appears, and filter on value of 1

Filter.yxmd

All comments

ShankerV

Hi @Bobbins

Have tried the same as below.

Can you please attach your workflow, will check what went wrong in your workflow.

Many thanks

Shanker V

Unique.yxmd

Bobbins

@ShankerV attached! Its as simple as yours however i note you also have two names, when it should only be one?

Unique Problem.yxzp

Felipe_Ribeir0

Hi @Bobbins

If i understood well you need that only names that never showed before to show up when you run the workflow, right? Here is one way of doing this.

Unique not being Unique.yxmd

ShankerV

Hi @Bobbins

I see your input as Smith and not as SMITH,

Many thanks

Shanker V

davidskaife

Hi @Bobbins

The Unique Tool doesn't work in the way you're wanting it to; it will find the unique instance of EVERY Surname, hence why you're getting both come through.

I think you need to try something like this:

Count the number of times the name appears, and filter on value of 1

Filter.yxmd

Bobbins

Apologies, just the way my text input is. However, even then unique is not being unique. Only Smith should show

@Felipe_Ribeir0 that's an interesting way of doing it!

Bobbins

Hi All,

@davidskaife Ah that would explain it then, its not quite as unique as I thought unique was. Thank you for that explanation and your suggested answer

@Felipe_Ribeir0 Your answer works, so using that.

@ShankerV Thanks for your help, as David has explained, unique is not quite as unique as i thought and hence you need some way of filtering them out!

ShankerV

Hi @Bobbins

You can now see the Unique names even if it is in Lower case or Upper case in the Input:

Many thanks

Shanker V

Unique.yxmd

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