apply automatically query steps on new files

[tjordaske]

I'm using software that creates each week a report and places this report always in the same folder but with the date added to the filename.

This report is fixed and cannot be changed by default so I need to do some additional steps in Power BI to remove some rows, change some data types, ....

So my questions are:

- How can I select a folder and add all the files in this folder as separated tables into Power BI, and that new files are automatically added when I push 'refresh'?

- How to add automatically all applied steps I did on one file to all the other files, and automatically also to the new files that are added each week?

[erik_tarnvik · Accepted solution]

Are the files all in the same format, for example csv (comma separated values)?

Is it important that each file ends up in a separate table?

You can use Get Data - Other - Folder to ask Power Query to grab all files in a specified folder. On each refresh, all data in that folder will be read so when new files are added, they will be read into the model upon refresh. You can also use all methods available in Power Query to shape the data as you see fit. All input will however end up in one table, but with a column containing the file name so it should be a simple matter to extract the date from the file name in that column in order to allow processing of date separated data.

Hope this helps! 

[PaddyEnFrance]

Hi, very useful. Supplementary question: does this work as an update to the main table or a refresh? i.e. if an old file is not deleted, is there a risk of duplication or is the table simply overwritten?