Unit introduction
Welcome to course two in Make Basics!
In this introductory unit you will explore the data types in Make.
You’ll learn about:
- The importance of data types.
- How to distinguish between different data types.
- What are some of the most common examples of each.
Let’s get to it!
What is a data type?
As you already know, when you are using Make to automate a task, Make always processes data. Practically all Make modules receive and output data.
Each data item has its data type, which defines the kind of data you expect in a specific place.
How Make Uses Data Types
The main unit of data in Make is a bundle. Every bundle contains several items. You can think of a bundle as a bag, containing separate, individual items inside it.
Each data item has its data type, which defines the kind of data you expect in a specific place (e.g. text, number, date, etc.).
Make uses data types for each input and output field. A field tells you which type of data it expects, so it guides you to set up your scenario correctly.
Understanding data types ensures that the data you collect is always in the right format and that the values are as expected. This is especially important in mapping and data processing.
You’ll learn more about data types later in this course.
An Example
Imagine you need to fill out a form or a survey.
You might need to fill in some personal information, such as your name, date of birth, address, etc. You need to enter your information in a specific format, so your name will be written in the form of text, the date of birth will be a date.
If you accidentally enter letters in a numerical field, such as price or phone number, you’ll probably get an error, because this field accepts only numbers.
This is what data types are about, they tell a computer system how to interpret the values.
You will explore data types in greater detail over the next few pages.
Basic data types in Make
Here you’ll see the most used and common data types.
Text
The text data type stores any kind of text data. It can be as short as names, addresses, or longer, such as a whole email body, or product description (for example, if you were using an e-commerce platform).
Text data contains characters such as letters, numbers, and special characters (@ ! ?).
Some examples include: hello world, Alice<3, +420-020-666-3333.
The text data type is also sometimes called a string.
Number
As you may presume, the number data contains numeric characters. You can have numbers with decimals (such as 10.53) or without decimals (10, 5, 1978).
You can use number data type to store information such as age, price, quantity, bank account balances, latitudes, and longitudes.
If you do not define your numbers as numbers they might also be considered as text. This is often fine, until you want to do any mathematical operations on the numbers such as adding them together.
Date
A date is a type which is used for dates or date + time.
The format of the date depends on the settings in your profile. It can for example look like DD/MM/YYYY HH:mm.
You’ll probably use the date data type when setting the start and end dates of a project, birthdays, etc.
If you fill in a field that requires entering a date, the pop-up calendar will appear in the module settings, as you can see on the image.
To make sure you are using the right date format, it’s best to use the built-in date picker (see image) or the parseDate function. Don’t worry about the function now, we’ll cover it in our next course.
Boolean
Boolean data type is used for items with only two possible values: true or false. You can think of it as an ON/OFF light switch. The light is either ON or it’s OFF, there is no other option.
You’ll often see this as yes or no (true or false) in Make. As on the image on the left shows, you either choose to watch the subfolders, or not to watch them.
Boolean could be a useful data type for emails, for example when the customer chooses whether they wish to receive further emails and newsletters or not.
Complex data types
Alright, you know the basic data types now!
Let’s briefly look at something more complex. We use these a lot within Make, and we will expand on these in much greater detail in unit 3 of this course.
Collection
A collection is a complex data type that groups multiple different elements into a single unit.
You can think of a collection as a kitchen drawer. You can store different types of items in your kitchen drawers (plates, cups, pans).
The kitchen drawer is like a collection, and the items inside represent the different items inside the collection.
Technically, a collection is a container that stores a group of different objects, just like our kitchen drawer.
You’ll learn more about collections later on in the course.
Array
An array is a complex data type that can contain multiple elements of the same type. An array is also known as a list.
For example, if you are planning a party, you might need to create several lists, such as the guest list, music playlist, grocery list. Every list is a separate array. An array is like a container that keeps similar things together in a single ordered list.
With the help of arrays you can store the names of 100+ people, and also search for a specific name on your list. For example, if you plan a party for 100+ guests, you can check if you have any people on the guest list named Paul or Zoe.
Arrays will be a very valuable concept in your Make journey, but you’ll explore them in detail at the end of this course.
How to recognize a data type?
Now you know the data types you’ll come across in Make!
Recognizing the specific data type you need to use in a specific field is really easy - simply hover over the name of the field or input and the tooltip with the data type will show.
You can see the data type of input fields, as well as the data fields coming from modules before that you have mapped. You want to make sure that these data types match - text in a text field, number in a number field, and so on.
Check the image on your left to see it in action. If you have one of your Make Use Cases open, we recommend opening one of the destination modules and identifying a data type used in there.
Why are data types important?
The modules used in your scenario will validate the item types that you use. This might include checking that the correct data type is used, length of characters, etc.
If an item does not pass the validation, you’ll receive a prompt informing you of the error.
For example, if you type in text in the number field, the execution of the scenario will terminate with a data error.
You can replicate this within Make easily by adding the Weather → Get current weather module, selecting a location by coordinates and using text in the entry field.
Data validation helps to ensure that your data is consistent, accurate, and complete. It also helps you prevent data loss and errors.
Validation errors use case – online order form
Imagine you have a wine shop and want to start sell your products online.
If a customer places an order, they’ll need to provide some of the following information.
Name
Text data type is usually used for the name field. Misspelling is quite common here.
Even though writing something which is grammatically wrong is not a validation error, because the text data type accepts everything, your future customers would probably not be thrilled to see their name as:
“El32la”
as people usually don’t have numbers in their names.
A common validation error would be exceeding the character limit, e.g. if the text field was set to 20 characters and the name Benjamin Lorenz Gareth Maker was input. This would produce an error after Gareth.
Date of birth
Date of birth has to be in a specific format. You cannot put:
“the twenty ninth of February, nineteen eighty three”
in text.
The user would need to choose the date from the calendar, or write it in the number format.
Also, if you sell wine, it is against the law to sell alcohol to customers under 18. Therefore the form would validate against the current date if it was before / after 18 years from the current date.
Price limit
You might not want your customers to place an order for less than 10 EUR for example.
The validation error would therefore be:
“orders cannot be placed if the number field is less than 10”
This information would be set in the number data type.
Location
If you have to ship to outside of the EU, and if the customer is in the US, they will have to pay additional costs for shipping.
The validation here would be:
“if location is not equal to EU, then notify customer of higher shipping charges”