Forum Discussion
Importing data into Power BI from Excel
I’ve been sent an Excel workbook with 3 identical worksheets, each representing a review at different project stages.
Each sheet has 4 titled 10 question “sections” , each section is separated by a blank row. Each question has an associated 1, 2, 3 (Low, Medium, High) score. Finally, there is a Key “section”, which is separated from the final Q&A section by 2 blank rows, which I don't need.
The Section titles and associated 10 questions are all in column A, with the scores in column B.
I tried a straight “Import data”, which recognised the 3 worksheets and gave me suggested Tables for each worksheet, however it only recognises the first ”section” header and the Key “section”, ignoring the other "section" headers completely and treating all rows, apart from those in the Key, as part of the first section.
The imported data has all 40 questions from the 4 sections plus their associated scores.
I tried putting an additional blank row between each of the sections but that changed nothing when I re-tried the import
Any suggestions as to how I get the import to recognise the intermediate sections would be much appreciated.
Thanks and regards
Fred
- Anonymous1 year ago
Your solution is so great danextian
Hi, MitieNHSFred
Based on what you said earlier, I've created a simple dataset:
To make it easier for Power BI to do your analysis, you can indeed create a table like the one shown by Super user. Here are the steps:
After adding the condition column, the result should look something like this:
Next, filter out the unnecessary rows of columnA:
Finally, the results available for Power BI are as follows:
In this way, you can easily create dimensional analyses for different sections:
Best Regards
Jianpeng Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Hi MitieNHSFred ,
Please see the code below with comments. I added a portion of my code to after the Changed Type applied step. You will need to [Column A] to the actual column name. Once done, duplicate it and then in the duplicate, replace "PCT 1" with the actual name of the worksheet.
// Extract the data from the "PCT 1" sheet #"PCT 1_Sheet" = Source{[Item = "PCT 1", Kind = "Sheet"]}[Data],To combine these three queries, look into Append in Power Query. You will need to disable the loading of these three staging queries as you already have the final and combined one in the append. Right click a query and uncheck Enable load to do that.
let // Load the Excel workbook file Source = Excel.Workbook( File.Contents("C:\Users\FJN\MyDrive - Our Company\Documents\PCT Assessment Blank Template.xlsx"), null, true ), // Extract the data from the "PCT 1" sheet #"PCT 1_Sheet" = Source{[Item = "PCT 1", Kind = "Sheet"]}[Data], // Promote the first row to headers #"Promoted Headers" = Table.PromoteHeaders(#"PCT 1_Sheet", [PromoteAllScalars = true]), // Change column data types #"Changed Type" = Table.TransformColumnTypes( #"Promoted Headers", {{"Project PCT Assessment 1", type text}, {"Column2", Int64.Type}, {"Column3", type any}} ), // Add a custom column to identify sections based on "Column A" #"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn( #"Changed Type", "Section", each if Text.Contains([Column A], "Section") then [Column A] else null ), // Fill down values in the "Section" column #"Filled Down" = Table.FillDown(#"Added Custom", {"Section"}), // Filter out rows where "Column A" contains the word "Section" #"Filtered Rows" = Table.SelectRows(#"Filled Down", each not Text.Contains([Column A], "Section")), // Filter out blank or null rows in "Column A" #"Filtered Rows1" = Table.SelectRows( #"Filtered Rows", each [Column A] <> "" and [Column A] <> null ), // Rename "Column A" to "Question" #"Renamed Columns" = Table.RenameColumns(#"Filtered Rows1", {{"Column A", "Question"}}) in // Return the final transformed table #"Renamed Columns"FilterNullAndWhitespace in the second code is confusing. It is telling M to select items from a list but doesn't specify the name of the list or an expression that generates a list.
12 Replies
- danextianSuper User
Hi MitieNHSFred
It is honestly difficult to provide a working or almost working code with just your description. Think about being in our shoes and us describing to you the file but without even seeing it 😄. That wouldn't be cool. Start with providing a link to your Excel file stored in the cloud with confidential data removed but still actually represents the structure of youe data, your expected result from the same sample data and the reasoning behind.
- MitieNHSFredHelper I
As to the desired result ( Thejeswar ) I don't know, as I want to get the data into Power BI, then I can work on what to do with it.
- danextianSuper User
A link to your sample data please because who wants to be manually typing those texts. As to the desired result, you can just make it up in Excel.
- ThejeswarSuper User
Hi MitieNHSFred ,
Same here as danextian . All this is trying to fix something that is not even visible to have an idea of what to fix. Please also consider sharing how the final data is supposed to look post importing the data.
Apart from sharing an excel file, another place that you can start looking into is the Power Query editor on what is happening in the steps there that removes the blank rows between sections.
Regards,
- MitieNHSFredHelper I
Apologies both ( danextian ), but it's a very basic spreadsheet, example table and screenshot below, hopefully this helps
Column A Column B Section 1 (of 4) Question 1 Score (1-3) Question 2 (of 10) Score (1-3) Total blank row Section 2 (of 4) Question 1 Score (1-3) Question 2 (of 10) Score (1-3) Screenshot of spreadsheet page
- danextianSuper User
The screenshot is missing. You can also just past the data and give us a screenshot of your expected result made up in Excel.
- AnonymousNot applicable
Your solution is so great danextian
Hi, MitieNHSFred
Based on what you said earlier, I've created a simple dataset:
To make it easier for Power BI to do your analysis, you can indeed create a table like the one shown by Super user. Here are the steps:
After adding the condition column, the result should look something like this:
Next, filter out the unnecessary rows of columnA:
Finally, the results available for Power BI are as follows:
In this way, you can easily create dimensional analyses for different sections:
Best Regards
Jianpeng Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.