Lessons Archive

Using a Date Dimension in any BI solution is a must to do. Not only because users might want to do slice and dice data by different date categories such as year, half year, quarter, month, week, fiscal categories. But also because sometimes you need to do analysis based on public holidays. Because Power Query can fetch public holidays live from a web query so it is a great tool for building a date dimension. In this lesson you learn how Power Query used for generating a date dimension with public holiday fetched live.

A reliable solution in Power BI should have a robust error handling implemented. Fortunately Power Query has the structure for implementing error handling. In this lesson you will learn how easy is to implement error handling in an example custom function.

Generators create lists, and leveraging EACH singleton function besides a generator enables us to loop through the list and do data transformation per each item in the list. This method is a good way of implementing loop structure in Power Query. You will learn through an example of custom function how generators and EACH function used.

Custom Functions improves the script. Custom function increases consistency of the code, and reduces redundancy. Power Query enables you to write your own custom code, and re-use it in your Power BI application as many times as you want. In this less you learn how to create a custom function through demos and examples.

Power Query is a functional language. Knowing functions is your best helper when you work with a functional language. Fortunately Power Query both in Excel and Power BI can use shared keyword to reveal a document library of all functions. In this lesson you learn how to use #shared keyword.

Power Query Formula Language is the code behind the scene for all Power Query operations. Anything that we do in Get Data & Transform graphical user interface will be converted to a script in a language informally named M (or Power Query Formula Language). This formula Language is much more powerful than graphical interface. There are some functions available in M which is not available in GUI. In this lesson you will learn basics about this scripting language.