[Excel import] Renaming column in Excel table leads to error in Power BI Desktop

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have troubles with column names from an Excel table in PowerBI. 

The Excel table contains a row of month data. This data shows up correctly in the Power Query Editor view in Power BI Desktop.

But when a column name, e.g. a month name, is renamend in the Excel file, this column can't be found by Power BI anymore. Reverting back the column name in Excel let's the column reappear in Power BI.

The error message is the following:

I unfortunately can't reproduce this problem. I write on behalf of a support client. Has someone experienced this error?

Thanks in advance

[mwegener]

Hi @Anonymous 

is your problem solved?

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[danextian]

Power BI data pulls data from selected columns so if a column in the data source is renamed, that causes an error. I would unpivot those month columns using Unpivot Other Columns feature to prevent this from happening. 

[mwegener · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Your support customer must go into each query and adjust the references to the columns.

I would recommend the Advance Editor.

Regards,

Marcus

Dortmund - Germany
If I answered your question, please mark my post as solution, this will also help others.
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[kentyler]

I'm guessing your client wants to rename the column something like 'May 20'.

They should look into a data structure where the year is the first column in the row and the column just has the name "may"

That way when they add a new year to excel, the new year will be data, not structure, and the links into power bi will continue to work fine.