Power Query is a technology embedded in Excel and other Microsoft products designed to help you shape your data. In Excel, select the Data tab on the ribbon to see the Get & Transform Data and Queries & Connections groups.
After you import and refresh data from a wide variety of data sources, you can then shape the data in a step-by-step transformation that gradually creates a unique, tabular shape to fit your data analysis needs.
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Excel has always been a rich platform for safely importing and connecting to a wide variety of data sources that you can analyze and refresh to get up-to-date information.
The most common way to create a query is to import data. After you shape your data in Power Query, you often load it into a worksheet or Data Model. Periodically, you may want to edit the query.
External data sources have connection information and data properties that you sometimes need to view and update.
When shaping data, you can perform many tasks on columns, such as adding, removing, renaming, splitting, and expanding them.
Beginning
Advanced
When shaping data, you can perform many tasks on rows, such as promoting or demoting column headers, removing, adding, and correcting them.
Good news. You’ll find that filtering and sorting data in Power Query is very similar to Excel.
Sometimes you need to group data by a label, aggregate data with operations (Sum, Count, Average, Min, and Max), merge queries, and append queries.
Although most of the transformations you make when you shape data can easily be done in the user interface, the Query Editor is also a way to fine-tune your transformations, and when necessary, add formulas to solve complex issues.
You can import and refresh data files and databases on the Mac.
You can refresh data sources on Excel for the web.
Power Query is a mature technology and the following help topics show how to perform advanced operations.
These help topics provide the reference information you may need along your data-shaping journey.