Chapter 7: Using the Power Query Add-In
In This Chapter
- Installing Power Query
- Learning about Power Query basics
- Understanding transformation actions
- Connecting to a wide array of data sources
- Creating and using Power Query functions
In information management, ETL refers to three separate functions:
- Extraction: Reading of data from a specified source and extracting a desired subset of data.
- Transformation: Cleaning, shaping, and aggregating of data to convert it to the desired structure.
- Load: Importing or writing of the resulting data to a target location.
You've probably been manually performing ETL processes for years — although you might not think of it that way. Whenever you pull data from a source location, manipulate that data, and integrate it into your reporting, you're performing ETL.
In an attempt to develop robust and reusable ETL processes, Microsoft released the Power Query Add-In. Power Query enhances the ETL experience by offering a mechanism to extract data from a wide variety of sources, perform complex transformations on that data, and then load the data into a workbook or the internal Data Model.
In this chapter, you see how the Power Query Add-In works and discover some of the innovative ways you can use it to help save time and automate the steps needed to ensure that clean data is imported into your reporting models.
Installing and Activating the Power Query Add-In
The Power Query Add-In does not come with Excel out of the box. Your administrator might ...
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