How to encrypt and decrypt columns

AddMaple understands that sometimes you will have personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive data in your dataset. Rather than expect you to remove sensitive columns and join it back later (which could lead to scrambling or other issues), we simply let you encrypt the sensitive columns while keeping the dataset intact.

When you need the data from the sensitive columns, for example to email a specific customer, you can decrypt the data.

This is an example of a column containing PII that you may want to encrypt

1

Example PII column (email) that you may want to encrypt.

To encrypt the column, go to the Chart Dashboard and then click on the More menu. Select "Encrypt Columns"

2

From More menu, choose Encrypt Columns to start the flow.

A pop-up box will appear where you can select the column(s) that you would like to encrypt.

3

Select one or more columns to encrypt.

Enter a password to encrypt your data. Please save this password somewhere safe as you will need this to decrypt your data later.

4

Enter a password; you'll need it later to decrypt.

After clicking "Encrypt", a new file will be downloaded to your computer.

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Encryption completes and a new file is downloaded.

Create a new project from the file that was downloaded in the previous step. You will see that any columns you selected to encrypt are shown on the Chart Dashboard as "encrypted".

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Example encrypted column

Click on the column to decrypt it. You will be shown a pop-up box and asked to enter the encryption password. If the password is correct, your data will be decrypted for your current session.

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Click the encrypted column and enter the password to decrypt for your session.