Forum Discussion

Microsoft Employee

7 years ago

Solved

Dynamically renaming values

I have a list of information, that is constantly updated, that needs values in a column to be changed to represent a different, more generic value.

I would need to change each unique value in column A to the generic value such as "Person 1" "Person 2" "Person 3" etc. This list gets updated with new values each week and thus the column would need to be updated dynamically. (hopefully)

I have tried the SWITCH function however the data is growing and can contain thousands of unique values which would be too time consuming to use.

Is there another way to achieve the expected results?

Example:

Data	Expected Outcome	Score
John	Person 1	48
Bill	Person 2	16
Doug	Person 3	26
Derek	Person 4	13
Carl	Person 5	14
John	Person 1	2
John	Person 1	6
Carl	Person 5	16
Doug	Person 3	26
Bill	Person 2	22
Derek	Person 4	16
Doug	Person 3	14
Bill	Person 2	16
Derek	Person 4	19
John	Person 1	21
Carl	Person 5	36
Derek	Person 4	38
Bill	Person 2	48

Thank you for any help.

This is a third alternative solution. I think this is better than previous 2 approaches

Using Power Query's Grouping Feature

See Table2's Query Editor in attached file for the steps

let
    Source = Table.FromRows(Json.Document(Binary.Decompress(Binary.FromText("i45W8srPyFNQ0lEKSC0qzs9TMAQyTSyUYnWilZwyc3IQEkZApqEZWMIlvzQdIWEMZBpBJVKLUrMRMiYgLcZgGefEIiSzTEESJmAJLNYb4ZIww2UUAWdhesTICKd7cZkFdS/uQMFiliVOLxri8IoxTsOMcUUKNLaiSpMSM4uAfBDCKgDUmpgD48cCAA==", BinaryEncoding.Base64), Compression.Deflate)), let _t = ((type text) meta [Serialized.Text = true]) in type table [Data = _t, #"Expected Outcome" = _t, Score = _t]),
    #"Grouped Rows" = Table.Group(Source, {"Data"}, {{"All Rows", each _, type table}}),
    #"Added Index" = Table.AddIndexColumn(#"Grouped Rows", "Index", 1, 1),
    #"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Added Index", {{"Index", each "Person " & Text.From(_, "en-US"), type text}}),
    #"Expanded All Rows" = Table.ExpandTableColumn(#"Added Prefix", "All Rows", {"Expected Outcome", "Score"}, {"Expected Outcome", "Score"})
in
    #"Expanded All Rows"

Dynamically renaming values.pbix48 KB

8 Replies

dedelman_clng
Community Champion
7 years ago
A suggestion would be in the Query Editor to add an Index column to the table containing the names, then a calculated column that is "Person" + "Index". This should give you what you need every time you refresh.

(This is select Index column, then Add Column -> Column from Examples -> From Selection. Type "Person1" and hit enter, it will create the code)

Adding in a new person, auto-increments without changing the others

Hope this helps
David
- demonfc
  Microsoft Employee
  7 years ago
  Thank you David. That would have been the solution if the values were truly unique. Unfortunately, my statement on unique values was inaccurate. They essentially need to be tagged as "Person 1", "Person 2", etc. but will still need to be grouped together if they are the same value.
  
  Basically, If john took the quiz seven times then "Person 1" would be listed 7 times in the column and if Becca took the quiz 4 times then "Person 8" is listed 4 times.
  
  Thank you for your help.
  - Zubair_Muhammad
    Community Champion
    7 years ago
    demonfc
    
    This should do it
    
    Please see the attached file's query editor to follow the steps
    
    let Source = Table.FromRows(Json.Document(Binary.Decompress(Binary.FromText("i45W8srPyFNQ0lEKSC0qzs9TMAQyTSyUYnWilZwyc3IQEkZApqEZWMIlvzQdIWEMZBpBJVKLUrMRMiYgLcZgGefEIiSzTEESJmAJLNYb4ZIww2UUAWdhesTICKd7cZkFdS/uQMFiliVOLxri8IoxTsOMcUUKNLaiSpMSM4uAfBDCKgDUmpgD48cCAA==", BinaryEncoding.Base64), Compression.Deflate)), let _t = ((type text) meta [Serialized.Text = true]) in type table [Data = _t, #"Expected Outcome" = _t, Score = _t]), #"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(Source,{"Expected Outcome", "Score"}), #"Removed Duplicates" = Table.Distinct(#"Removed Columns"), #"Added Index" = Table.AddIndexColumn(#"Removed Duplicates", "Index", 1, 1), #"Merged Queries" = Table.NestedJoin(Source,{"Data"},#"Added Index",{"Data"},"Added Index",JoinKind.LeftOuter), #"Expanded Added Index" = Table.ExpandTableColumn(#"Merged Queries", "Added Index", {"Index"}, {"Index"}), #"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Expanded Added Index", {{"Index", each "Person " & Text.From(_, "en-US"), type text}}), #"Renamed Columns" = Table.RenameColumns(#"Added Prefix",{{"Index", "Person"}}) in #"Renamed Columns"
    
    Dynamically renaming values.pbix46 KB