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Neok's avatar
Neok
Frequent Visitor
3 years ago
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Power Query errors

Hi all,   I'm trying to put in a dataset but im getting errors. I optimalized my dataset to put in all the empty fields an '-'.  The following error is coming up. It has to do something with the d...
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  • BA_Pete's avatar
    BA_Pete
    3 years ago

     

    You're better off removing all the '-' from the source. Power Query works only on raw data and data types, it doesn't really understand presentation formatting like this.

    If you really want to display '-' instead of blanks in reporting (it's not a standard thing to do) you can paste a new format pattern in here, using the same pattern structure that Excel format patterns use:

     

    Pete

BA_Pete's avatar
BA_Pete
Icon for Super User rankSuper User
3 years ago

Hi Neok ,

 

Adding '-' into empty cells in Power Query isn't an optimisation by any definition.

The reason you're getting these errors is because PQ is looking for specific data types (the ones you set on the column) to apply to every value in the column. '-' is not a number, nor is a date, therefore PQ can't apply that data type to it, therefore you get an error for those values.

Remove whatever steps you implemented in order to place them in there and that will fix your errors.

 

If you want blanks to show as '-' in your reports, this will need to be done with either custom format in Excel or a custom measure in Power BI.

 

Pete