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Recoba88's avatar
Recoba88
Helper III
9 years ago
Solved

Overwrite columns

Hi,   When I add column only in excel (the data loaded from power query) and after it I add another column in power query. The column from power query overwrites the column I added in excel.     ...
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  • MarcelBeug's avatar
    MarcelBeug
    9 years ago

    In that case you need to merge your table (with comments) and the information from Sharepoint in a query which sends it output back to your table (which serves both as input and as output).

     

    In order to do that, you need to have a key column (or a set of key columns) you can use to merge both tables.

     

    So your query structure is like:

    get table from Sharepoint

    merge with Excel table and expand (only your comment column so the comment will be added to the table from Sharepoint)

     

    And the output of this query is written to the Excel table.

     

    Edit: example of a working query how it looks like in the end.

    It requires some steps to set it up, as illustrated in the video that I linked in a previous post.
    The name of the query is ExcelTable, so the output is used as input with the next refresh.

     

    let
    Source = SharepointTable,
    TableWithComments = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="ExcelTable"]}[Content],
    #"Merged Queries" = Table.NestedJoin(Source,{"Header 1"},TableWithComments,{"Header 1"},"NewColumn",JoinKind.LeftOuter),
    #"Expanded NewColumn" = Table.ExpandTableColumn(#"Merged Queries", "NewColumn", {"Comments"}, {"Comments"})
in
    #"Expanded NewColumn"

     

     

MarcelBeug's avatar
MarcelBeug
Community Champion
9 years ago

In that case you need to merge your table (with comments) and the information from Sharepoint in a query which sends it output back to your table (which serves both as input and as output).

 

In order to do that, you need to have a key column (or a set of key columns) you can use to merge both tables.

 

So your query structure is like:

get table from Sharepoint

merge with Excel table and expand (only your comment column so the comment will be added to the table from Sharepoint)

 

And the output of this query is written to the Excel table.

 

Edit: example of a working query how it looks like in the end.

It requires some steps to set it up, as illustrated in the video that I linked in a previous post.
The name of the query is ExcelTable, so the output is used as input with the next refresh.

 

let
    Source = SharepointTable,
    TableWithComments = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="ExcelTable"]}[Content],
    #"Merged Queries" = Table.NestedJoin(Source,{"Header 1"},TableWithComments,{"Header 1"},"NewColumn",JoinKind.LeftOuter),
    #"Expanded NewColumn" = Table.ExpandTableColumn(#"Merged Queries", "NewColumn", {"Comments"}, {"Comments"})
in
    #"Expanded NewColumn"

 

 

freelensia's avatar
freelensia
Advocate II
7 years ago

Hi @MarcelBeug,

 

Thank you for the elegant solution. I have been using it for some time now.

 

However, there is something that has always troubled me. After I implement your solution for the first time, Excel always creates another set of the "comments" columns. I have to manually delete those columns in the resulting table in Excel.

 

Coming to think about it, PQ is doing the right thing in terms of code. When you ask it to Expand Columns after the merge, it does exactly that and creates the extra set of columns!

 

How do we prevent that?