A customer needs to perform the equivalent of Excel's VLOOKUP in Displayr — specifically, to match text entries from one variable against a reference table and output the matched result as one or more new variables in the dataset.

Displayr currently lacks a native function or UI workflow that allows users to:

Join or map values from a lookup table to another variable using partial or exact matching (as in VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP).

Output the result as new variables in the data set (rather than just a display table or calculated value).

While lookup operations are possible using R code, there's no integrated or user-friendly mechanism to automate this process and store the result directly as new variables.

Interim Solution

To meet the customer's need, I’ve created a custom analysis tool and a QScript that:

Accepts a lookup table and target variable as inputs.

Performs exact, fuzzy, or TF-IDF matching.

Outputs matched values as new variables in the data set using a structured naming convention.

This solution is working for the customer, but it involves technical steps and knowledge of how to write R CODE and JavaScript that would ideally be abstracted away in the product UI.

Recommendation

Introduce a native feature in Displayr that enables users to:

Select a lookup table and a variable to match against.

Choose a matching method (exact, fuzzy, etc.).

Output the matched value(s) directly as new variables, with the option to control variable naming and question text.

This would significantly streamline common workflows and reduce the need for custom scripting.

This would also push customers more to using data files that contain metadata rather than performing VLOOKUP in Excel and using that data file in Displayr.