"Invantive Data Loader" on the "General" tab of the ribbon opens a window of its own for loading data from one place into another without writing the statement by hand. It is the same engine and the same connection as the editor beside it; what it adds is the mapping. ## What It Does The window asks four things in turn: - the source: a table, a view or a file the connection can reach; - the target: the table the rows are to land in; - the mapping: which column of the source fills which column of the target, with a transformation per column where the two do not match; - the run: the statement built from the three above, executed against the connection. The statement it builds is an ordinary Invantive UniversalSQL statement, and it is shown before it runs. That matters more than it looks: a load which has to be repeated, scheduled or reviewed is better kept as that statement, in a `.sql` file, than as a mapping which lives in a window. ## When to Use Which - A load to be done once, between two shapes which do not match, by somebody who would rather not write the join: the Data Loader. - A load which is repeated, which belongs in version control, or which has to run unattended: the statement, saved as a file and run by [[Invantive Data Hub/Invantive Data Hub|Invantive Data Hub]]. - A load of many tables at once, or one which has to keep two platforms equal over time: the [[Invantive UniversalSQL/Grammar/Statement Types/Synchronize Statement (synchronizeStatement)|synchronize]] statement, which is written for exactly that and does the comparison itself. ## What to Watch A load into a cloud platform is one call per row; see [[Invantive Query Tool/Changing Data|Changing Data]]. The [[Invantive Query Tool/Connection Monitor|Connection Monitor]] shows those calls while the load runs, and the [[Invantive Query Tool/Progress|Progress]] panel shows how far it has come. A load of tens of thousands of rows into such a platform is an operation to plan rather than to start on a Friday afternoon. The window carries the same connection, partitions and licence as the rest of the product, so what the connection may not do the loader may not do either.