Time for action – creating a simple transformation and getting familiar with the design process

In this exercise, you will create a simple transformation that takes a list of projects with the start and end dates, and calculates the time that it took to complete each project.

1. Start Spoon.
2. From the main menu, navigate to File | New | Transformation.
3. Expand the Input branch of the Steps tree. Remember that the Steps tree is located in the Design tab to the left of the work area.
4. Drag-and-drop the Data Grid icon on the canvas.
5. Double-click on the Data Grid icon and enter projects in the Step name field.
6. Fill in the grid as shown in the following screenshot:
   
7. Click on the Data tab, and fill the grid as shown in the following screenshot:
   
8. Click on Preview and in the small window that appears, click on OK.
9. Oops! It seems that something went wrong. The following ERROR window appears:
   
10. Great! Now you know what the error was: Kettle tried to convert the string N/A to a date. You can easily fix it: delete...