Forum Discussion
Assigning values to increments in a loop
I have a column of data comprising blocks of 3 entries. Each block of 3 is unique and I need to add a new column which contains n an incremental value for each of the entries within each block as A, B, C (or 1, 2, 3) then start again at the next unique block.
e.g. there could be 3 entries labelled "car" followed by another 3 entries labelled "bus". I want to assign a value of A in the new column to the first entry of car, B to the second entry, C to the third - then repeat the cycle from A for bus.
Any advice on the best way to accompish this would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Cul33
In Power query, I would
- Add an index to the core table
- take a copy of the table.
- group the copied table by the first three columns - adding a MIN aggregation column
- Merge the grouped table back to the original table including the new [offset] column
- create a NEW column that subtracts the offset from the index to generate a number that can be converted to ABC
- remove the interum columns.
5 Replies
- HI there, Can you please post a small sample of your data so we can suggest some calculations. A mock up would be fine.
- Do you have any other columns in your table that can help split the ties into 1,2 & 3?
Hi Phil
Thanks for the reply.
Below is a sample (which is extracted from the preliminary stages of transformation steps, hence the data types are not applied).
Each value corresponds to a heading that I want to create, which could be A, B or C. So for the first block of 3 entries, in rows 67 to 69 - the first entry for period Jan 2015 to Dec 2015 I want to be able to assign a value of "A" in an adjacent column, then for the second entry a value of "B" and the third a value of "C". When a change in Period is identifed, i.e. in row 70, I am wanting to return a value of A again in the adjacent and then to loop through to C - which would repeat for several thousand rows
.
I hope this makes sense.
Hi Cul33
In Power query, I would
- Add an index to the core table
- take a copy of the table.
- group the copied table by the first three columns - adding a MIN aggregation column
- Merge the grouped table back to the original table including the new [offset] column
- create a NEW column that subtracts the offset from the index to generate a number that can be converted to ABC
- remove the interum columns.
