Part V: Understanding Power Pivot and Power Query
The Append feature comes in handy when you need to consolidate multiple identical tables
into one table. For example, if you have tables from the North, South, Midwest, and West
regions, you can consolidate the data from each region into one table using the Append
feature.
To understand the Append feature better, let’s walk through an exercise that consolidates
data from four different regions into one table. In this walk-through, we’ll use the
regional data found on four different tabs in the Appending_Data.xlsx sample file
(see Figure 40.7).
FIGURE 40.7
The data found on each region tab needs to be consolidated into one table.
Creating the needed base queries
It’s important to understand that the Append feature works only on existing queries. That
is to say, no matter what kind of data sources you have, you’ll need to import them into
Power Query before you can append them together. In this case, it means getting all of the
region tables into queries.
Follow these steps:
- Go to the North Data worksheet, select any cell inside the table, and then click
Data ➪ From Table/Range. The Power Query Editor will activate, showing you the
contents of the table you just imported. To finalize the creation of the query, you’ll
need to use one of the Close & Load commands.
