Cleaning up data by combining spelling variations into more organized categories

[floridapaceman]

Hi all,

If I have data such as: Walmart, Wal-Mart, Wal_Mart, WM, etc.... --- I want the end-user to be able to search "Walmart" and would like to include all these variations within this search.

1 -- Is there a method to 'bin' or 'group' spelling variations (into a new column)

2 -- Is the add-on 'SmartFilter' still the best method for the user to custom search?

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Regards

[v-sihou-msft · Accepted solution]

@floridapaceman

I think you can only create a calculated column with SEARCH() function. See: From SQL to DAX: String Comparison

=
IF ( SEARCH ( "Wal*Mart", Table[Column], 1, 0 ) > 0, 1, 0 )

Or you can do same string comparison with Text.Contains via Power Query approach.

There's no feature to detect the string on each row and create a group column automatically.

For custom search, using SmartFilter should be the best option.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

If you know the alternate spellings, you could add this to your power queries to do the clean up for you.  Of course this would mean recording every single varient of all the names you wish to account for.