# Define Data Source and Target

To make use of the data that comes from the *Data Connections*,\_ \_users can make use of the *Source* and *Target* shapes from the palette, which can be used to configure source and destination data stores.

After dropping any of these two shapes into the canvas and clicking on them, a window will appear at the bottom of the screen. This window will show two main tabs, one named *Config,* and the other *Sample Data.* The *Config* tab will provide four tabs from which the user can choose the type of data input. These options are:

[**Table Input** ](https://docs.vexdata.io/designing-and-executing-flows/flows/untitled-1/input-data-source/input-table-s-from-database)**:** This is used to configure a data store which is a from a database in the form of a table.

[**SQL Input**](https://docs.vexdata.io/designing-and-executing-flows/flows/untitled-1/input-data-source/input-sql-data) **:** Custom SQL queries can be defined in this tab to extract data from multiple tables. These queries can be nested queries to chain the SQL statements.

{% hint style="warning" %}
Always prefix schema name before the table name as a good practice. 

Example : select \* from marketing.users where marketing is the schema name.
{% endhint %}

[**File Input**](https://docs.vexdata.io/designing-and-executing-flows/flows/untitled-1/input-data-source/input-files) **:** This tab can be used if the data has to be taken from a file which is in one of the following formats: \_Parquet, AVRO, JSON, CSV \_or *Excel.*

[**API Input**](https://docs.vexdata.io/designing-and-executing-flows/flows/untitled-1/input-data-source/api-source) **:** This tab can be used to call on an API to extract data. This is a request response pattern where API calls can be scheduled to extract data.