The next step is to combine all the files into one combined data model. Here is an image of the files we loaded in from our folder location in the Query Editor. For more documentation on the M language look at the Microsoft documentation located here.

To see the code Click the View ribbon then click the button labeled Advance Editor. Each step writes a little line of code that handles the transformations. Each button press in the Query Editor performs a transformation to your data. Note: The Query Editor is a graphical representation of the M-language which is used to load data. This is where we can manipulate the incoming data before we visualize it. Therefore, Click the Edit button to modify the query to load data. Normally we would press Load and move forward but in this case we want to further manipulate our query to load the data. The next window to open shows the files that Power BI Desktop is able to see in the folder location. Click OK once you’ve selected the location of the folder. This is where we will select the location of our data in the folder we unzipped earlier. Get Data Folder Icon SelectionĬlick the Connect button at the bottom right of the screen. The Get Data window will be presented and this time we will select the Folder icon in the menu. On the Home ribbon select the Get Data button. For this demo I unzipped the files to my desktop folder. Lets start off by downloading the Data Set and unzipping the file to a folder called DataSet. 281) download the latest version from Microsoft Here.

Power BI Desktop (I’m using the March 2016 version.

Zip file with (3) three excel files download Data Set.

So in true homage of my engineering roots this post is for you, the all mighty data hungry engineer.Īlright, enough of be babbling, Lets get to it. Now I have seen the light, The simple ability of being able to load a group files from a folder is AWESOME! Had I had this feature in my engineering days I could have saved so much time. I was really good at being boring, and I felt like I was able to become quite ingenious by writing macros and automating parts of my data transformations. Then perform some transformations just to produce a bar chart or a line graph, uggh. In all my years as an engineer I would have to constantly copy and paste data from one excel file to another. My entire view of Excel and Power BI has been shaped by this simple but powerful idea Automated Data Loading. My first thought is this is going to CHANGE EVERYTHING, and to be perfectly honest it has. When I first saw this feature in Power Query for excel I nearly had a conniption.

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