Part V: Understanding Power Pivot and Power Query
Take a moment to appreciate what Power Query allowed you to do just now. With a few
clicks, you searched the Internet, found some base data, shaped the data to keep only the
columns you needed, and even manipulated that data to add an extra Week Of dimension to
the base data. This is what Power Query is about: enabling you easily to extract, filter, and
reshape data without the need for any programmatic coding skills.
Understanding query steps
Power Query uses its own formula language, known as the M language, to codify your que-
ries. As with macro recording, each action you take when working with Power Query results
in a line of code being written into a query step. Query steps are embedded M code, which
allows your actions to be repeated each time you refresh your Power Query data.
You can see the query steps for your queries by activating the Query Settings pane in the
Power Query Editor window (see Figure 38.11). Simply click the Query Settings command
on the View tab of the Ribbon. You can also place a check in the Formula Bar option to
enhance your analysis of each step with a formula bar that displays the syntax for the
given step.
FIGURE 38.11
Query steps can be viewed and managed in the Applied Steps section of the Query Settings
pane.
Each query step represents an action that you took to get to a data table. You can click any
step to see the underlying M code in the Power Query formula bar. For example, clicking
the step called Removed Errors reveals the code for that step in the Formula bar.
