The Data Cropping Tool works like a pair of scissors: it lets you cut and extract a specific part of a text or value. You can crop from the beginning to the middle of a string, or take just a fragment in the middle (for example, from the third to the fifth character).
Practical example
Let's say we receive information about Google's click identifier (GCLID) from a source. The information comes in a format like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/?gclid=1234
From this line, we only need to get the numeric value 1234, which we'll then send, for example, to Google Sheets. To do this, we use the Data Cropping Tool.
Step 1. Adding the tool
Open your automation, click the plus sign (+) between the steps, and select the Tool option.
Then, select the Data Cropping tool.
Step 2. Configuring the tool
In this step, you configure the tool itself. You need to fill in 6 fields:
Dataset name: create a name to identify the data you're going to format.
Value to process: choose the field whose value you want to crop (in our example, the source URL).
Cropping direction: define where the crop will start, from the beginning or from the end. If you choose "from the beginning," the system processes the string from left to right. If you choose "from the end," the process is reversed and runs from right to left.
Cropping type: there are two options, "By number of characters" or "By a specified character." In our example, we use "By a specified character."
Character to start cropping from: here you indicate the point where the data you want to extract begins. Following the example, we enter the value
d=, so the crop would return 1234.Character to crop up to: in this case, we don't enter any value; instead, we enable the "Crop to the end" option, so the system understands it should take all the content from the point indicated in step 5 to the end of the line.
If you need the crop to end before the end of the line, simply specify the character where it should stop.
How to split a full name into two separate values
In this example, we'll split a full name into two separate values (first name and last name) using the Data Cropping Tool. You need to use the tool twice, since each cropping step extracts only one part of the text.
Input text: Michael Johnson
Goal:
Michael → first name
Johnson → last name
Important: to split a text into several values, you need to add the Data Cropping Tool as many times as the number of values you need to extract, one tool per value.
Step 1. Create the automation
The automation should include:
Trigger: for example, Google Sheets, detecting a cell change and sending the row.
Tool: Data Cropping (first value).
Tool: Data Cropping (second value).
Action: any app where you want to send the already-separated values.
Step 2. Extract the first value (First name)
In this step, we extract everything before the first space.
In the "Value to process" field, select the full name value (for example, a Google Sheets column).
Set the cropping type to "By a specified character."
Enable the Crop from the beginning option.
In the "Character to crop up to" field, enter a blank space to extract the first name.
Result: Michael
Step 3. Extract the second value (Last name)
Now we extract everything after the last space. To get the last value from a text, use the Crop from the end option together with "Character to crop up to." The system will look for the specified character from the end and return everything that comes after it.
In the "Value to process" field, select the same full name value.
Set the cropping direction to Crop from the end.
Keep the "Crop from the beginning" option enabled (this option defines which part is removed, not the cropping direction), and in the "Character to crop up to" field, enter a blank space to extract the last name.
Result: Johnson
Step 4. Add an action
After configuring the Data Cropping Tool, add an action step where the extracted values (first name and last name) will be sent, for example to a CRM field, a Google Sheets column, or any other connected app.
You can use the same method to extract other values, such as middle names, phone codes, order numbers, IDs, or any data separated by spaces or other characters (commas, dashes, symbols, etc.).