Segmenting Data based on first letter of name

[czuniga]

I'm looking for a way to segment a list based on the first letter of the last name of the people in the list. One segment will be for names that start with A-L and the other segment will be for names that start with M-Z.

What's the best way to do that?

[mahoneypat · Accepted solution]

If you list of names is fairly static, you can use a Groups column to quickly create a new column with your two groups.

Use grouping and binning in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

If your list is dynamic, you can create a custom column in your query with an expression like this

= if List.Contains({"A".."L"}, Text.Start([Column1], 1)) then "A-L" else "M-Z"

Note that M is case sensitive so you may need "a" and "l" if your first letters are not capitalized.

Pat