Excel Weekly Challenge: Find the Power Query Result

This short challenge is to find the result of a Power Query query and load it onto a worksheet. Our friend Tony insists that he used Power Query to convert some attendance data. But where is it? Where is the resulting query? If you can find it, can you load it onto a worksheet so that it's visible?

This is a sneaky challenge, asking viewers to do some sleuthing. This is also related to one of the 25 tips in the course: Power Query Tips and Techniques. There are a lot of small things about Power Query that aren't worth entire videos on their own. But, they're important things to know about because Power Query has its quirks. This "where the hell is the result" is one of those quirks.

Take the challenge!

Check out the Tips & Techniques course to learn more about how to get the most from Power Query. Other tips include:

• Warnings about merging columns in Power Query
• How filtering is different between Excel and Power Query
• How to split columns easier in Power Query than in Excel
• Staying organized

A Comment about Power Query and the Weekly Challenges

When this series was dreamed up, it was done so with Excel beginners in mind. That's a tough one, for me because I think back to being a beginner, and I've worked with a lot of true beginners. One thing is consistent:

When your ass is thrown into the fire in real life, you've got to perform. Situations don't wait until we've graduated to their level.

Therefore, the challenges are still created with beginners in mind, but also with an eye toward offering functional skills. So, there's a balance to strike. What's fair game: IF statements? Recording a VBA macro? Basic pivot tables? Is Power Query fair game?

I see Power Query as part of the basic tool kit for anyone working with data. We all have to work with lists; compare lists; merge data from different sources, etc. It'd be criminal to keep Power Query away from beginners because this is the type of stuff Power Query was made for. (And no. We won't be recording macros.)

My frustration with "beginner" courses

This reminds me of a sad situation where someone was in need of building a tracking document that involved 2-way look-ups and data validation. She started by taking a course for beginners and after a week she was so disheartened, and I felt angry as she described how her week was spent.

She'd learned a bunch of keyboard shortcuts, how to save a document as a PDF, align text, and change cell colors. ??

All good stuff to know, but nothing that she could immediately use in the fire she'd been thrown into.

Therefore, this Excel Weekly Challenge series is a true mix of basics like, formatting cells; but also needs like, creating dropdown lists and investigating errors; and introductions to Power Query.

Where to find Oz du Soleil

List of Courses by Oz du Soleil in the LinkedIn Learning Library

LinkedIn

YouTube: Excel on Fire

OzduSoleil.com