Data Smart, 2nd Edition

2Set It and Forget It: An Introduction to Power Query

I grew up in the 1990s, when late-night and weekday television programming were just informercials. Ron Popiel, inventor of the Chop-O-Matic, Veg-O-Matic, and the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ, was famous for his catch phrase, “Set it and forget it!”

But let's be honest: if the line was appealing, it's because so few things work this way in life. When it comes to data, we don't expect it to be that simple. But in fact, Power Query is designed to be the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it technology. As you'll see, it will set us up for some important data science lessons by the end of this book.

What Is Power Query?

If this is the first you're hearing about Power Query, you're not alone. Despite being around for several years, many people still don't know it exists. So in this chapter, I'll briefly introduce you to the bones of Power Query. The intention of this chapter is to get your brain going. It won't be a full review of the technology. Rest assured, however, we'll continue to use Power Query throughout this book with important lessons yet to come.

So what is Power Query? To answer that question, we have to understand the workflow of data scientists. Though the dream of any would-be data science intern is to work on an impactful artificial intelligence and machine learning project, the reality is that someone has to find and clean the data—and that someone is you. In fact, data cleaning compromises the vast majority of data ...