Edit Data on Import

[mgallacher]

Most of the data I'm importing is exported out of cloud providers. Considering I can't edit the data in their database, is there a way to save query steps, or even better, edit the data on import automatically? I'll be importing the data every month and all my changes will be lost everytime I import. 

[tjd · Accepted solution]

On the Home tab of PowerBI Desktop, you'll find the Edit Queries button.  Clicking on it, opens the Power Query editor in which you can edit your data to your heart's content.  After editing, click Apply and Load and your data model will be ready to use your edited data for creating visuals.  Save the PowerBI Destop file.  The next time you refresh your data from the data source, it will import, all the saved power queries will run, and you will have updated your PowerBI with new data in the format you desired.  Hope this is what you were looking for.

[MarcelBeug]

Actually the normal situation is that your query steps are applied again on each data refresh, so I wonder why your changes get lost.

[mgallacher]

They aren't Marcel. I'm a marketer trying to learn Power BI from scratch and didn't realize those steps would apply everytime. Thank you all for the explanations!

[erik_tarnvik]

Power Query should be your ticket to solve this problem. That's pretty much what it is for.