Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Did you hear? There's a new SQL AI Developer certification (DP-800). Start preparing now and be one of the first to get certified. Register now

Reply
kb19270
Frequent Visitor

undefined

I have a column in a table which contains text. I would like to create another column from this which will show a text (i have 3 text that i want to find)  if any of these texts is found in the other column and blank if it doesn't contain any of the 3 texts. I am guessing contain or containstring function should do but not sure how.

Please see example below

 

Column A                                                               Column B

General wear  replace part                                   General wear       

Contamination oil drop found                             Contamination

vaccuum clean                                                        -

other machine moved                                            other   

contamination dropped oil                                  contamination

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
rsbin
Community Champion
Community Champion

@kb19270 ,

You are right to use CONTAINSSTRING, but combined with the SWITCH function.  Acts very much like a nested IF, but much easier to use and read:

ColumnB = SWITCH(
              TRUE(),
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "General wear" ), "General wear",
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "Contamination" ), "Contamination",
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "other" ), "other",
              "-" )

rsbin_0-1666975355589.png

Trust you will be able to make this work for you.

Regards,

View solution in original post

1 REPLY 1
rsbin
Community Champion
Community Champion

@kb19270 ,

You are right to use CONTAINSSTRING, but combined with the SWITCH function.  Acts very much like a nested IF, but much easier to use and read:

ColumnB = SWITCH(
              TRUE(),
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "General wear" ), "General wear",
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "Contamination" ), "Contamination",
              CONTAINSSTRING( [Column A], "other" ), "other",
              "-" )

rsbin_0-1666975355589.png

Trust you will be able to make this work for you.

Regards,

Helpful resources

Announcements
April Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - April 2026

Check out the April 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.

Fabric SQL PBI Data Days

Data Days 2026 coming soon!

Sign up to receive a private message when registration opens and key events begin.

New to Fabric survey Carousel

New to Fabric Survey

If you have recently started exploring Fabric, we'd love to hear how it's going. Your feedback can help with product improvements.

Power BI DataViz World Championships carousel

Power BI DataViz World Championships - June 2026

A new Power BI DataViz World Championship is coming this June! Don't miss out on submitting your entry.