Course Description
Until now, building Business Intelligence solutions has been a painful, repetitive process requiring a great deal of manual effort to clean, filter, and format data before it can even be used. And updates have been tedious and error prone.
Learning to use Power Query means less time spent manipulating data and more time analyzing it to gain powerful insights and make better decisions.
Power Query will save you hours of time gathering and preparing your data before loading it into your data model.
How much time? Great question…
Consider this scenario: a regulation changes in your industry, and every company is forced to hire a new full-time employee in order to process the data that now needs to be reported to the government on a monthly basis. Every company, that is, except yours. Why? Because you were able to automate the data processing and reporting using your amazing Power Query skills, reducing the job to 15 minutes per week.
This isn’t a hypothetical scenario, this really happened for one of our clients. An average of 160 person-hours was reduced to a single hour, using Power Query. How amazing is that? Where their competition all ended up adding a full-time employee to their corporate overhead, our client didn’t need to. That means they’ve been able to get a competitive advantage over their competitors based on what they’ve learned from our material.
Or how about the client who was able to take the rent-arrears report which took a full day of manual effort to create every single week? What would you say if you could take a job like that, and reduce it to the click of a single button that now only takes a couple of minutes? Would you like to save 52 person days of manual effort per year? Of course you would! And yes, that truly happened.
Now let’s be fair. It would be irresponsible of us to promise you that you’ll save 52 person-days per year, or a full time employee on an annual basis by learning our techniques. Not everyone will realize those kinds of productivity gains.
But, what we can say is that we routinely get emails from people telling us that they’ve saved 4-5 hours of manual labour per week based on the things they’ve learned from our material. Think about that for a second… What if you saved only 3 hours per week? Multiply that by your hourly rate, and by 50 working weeks per year. It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? And what if you could use that time to learn even more about Power Query and automate other processes as well?
There’s one more thing that we really want you to think about here. Do you enjoy cleaning up the same data on a weekly or monthly basis? Is that satisfying for you? Wouldn’t you be more interested in analyzing that data and drawing conclusions from that data? You know – the job you were actually hired for?
Let us help you!
Our courses are built from a practical point of view, showcasing real-world examples and techniques that you can use right away. You’ll learn the steps, formulas, and tricks from world-class experts that will save you hours of time on a weekly basis. Let us help you get the data-cleaning out of the way, so that you can focus on the satisfying part of the job: providing the insights that you were actually hired to deliver.
This course starts at the beginning, and is intended for people who have never used Power Query at all, those who are self taught and want to ensure they haven’t missed anything, or those who just want great coverage of all of Power Query’s core features.
You’ll learn basic transformation techniques and methods to clean up a variety of common data challenges, as well as how to pull data from various data sources and pull them together into a single refreshable solution that will save you hours of time on a monthly basis.
From there, you’ll learn how to unwind difficult data patterns, dive deep into the underlying M language, and complement user-interface-driven actions with a sprinkling of code to build amazing and practical solutions. Power Query formulas, custom functions and even pro tips for future proofing solutions and improving performance; you’ll pick up the skills to make you a data ninja.
Simply put, you won’t find a more comprehensive Power Query course anywhere! Plus, everything you learn in applicable to both Excel and Power BI.
Who this course is for?
- Anyone that needs to import and clean data to be analyzed
- Anyone who copies and pastes data into the same Excel spreadsheet on a regular basis in order to be able to continue their workflow
- Anyone who has ever tried to consolidate data in Excel using VLOOKUP() or other methods
- Every user of Excel or Power BI who wants total control of their data
Not sure if this course is right for you?
Visit our Learning Journey page to compare courses by skill level and area of specialization.
Reviews
Power Query Academy
Average Rating
4.95 / 5
• An e-book in the same structure to quickly refer to afterwards
• Subtitles! Quite handy for non-English speakers
• Clear structure, much detail
• Training materials (downloads), exercise labs
• Mistakes made in the movies—either intentionally or unintentionally—and then immediately fixed: they show you how easy it is to recover from them (or how to analyze them) and that failure is an option, at least during development. 😉
• Video player: option to increase the speed!
THANK YOU!!! Money VERY well spent, and I've already used some of the course techniques in my solutions. I'm also trying to convince my colleagues to join 😉
Course Update Log
2021-03-05
First release of the course as the complete Power Query Academy (course was formerly two separate courses: Power Query Essentials and Power Query Advanced).
2021-03-29
New lessons added to the course:
- Formulas and Conditional Logic Module
- Real World Example of Previous Row Logic
- Real World Example of Previous Row Logic
- Parameters and Custom Functions Module
- Combining Multiple Web Pages
- Combining Multiple Web Pages
- Date and Time Techniques Module
- Power BI Calendar Tables and Some Tricks
- Power BI Calendar Tables and Some Tricks
- Bringing it All Together Module
- Flatten Absence Entries: A Tricky Example
- Real World Extracting Web Data
- Flatten Absence Entries: A Tricky Example
- Added new card to Section 20: Reshaping Data
- Remove Top x (Dynamic) Rows (20.150)
- Updated cards in Section 30: Combining Data
- 30.105 to 30.116 – link added on each card that goes to the Creating a Staging Query recipe (0.110)
- Cartesian Products (30.120) – recipe steps updated to reflect a new and improved technique
- Updated links throughout the collection to the associated Power Query Academy videos
- The original Power Query Essentials and Advanced courses have been merged into a single Power Query Academy course
2021-06-28
New lessons added to the course:
- Managing Queries Module
- Using Relative References in Queries
- Advanced M Techniques Module
- Techniques to Rename Columns
2021-08-02
Release of Master Your Data with Excel and Power BI book (formerly titled M is for (Data) Monkey). Course registrants now receive the new second edition instead of the original first edition.
2021-09-28
New module added to the course called Allocating Values to Periods, which contains 10 new lessons:
- Allocation Summary
- Evenly To Each Day in Period
- To Month by Days in Period
- Evenly to Each Month in Period
- To Year by Days in Period
- Evenly to Each Year in Period
- Over x Days From Start Date
- Over x Months From Start Date
- Over x Years From Start Date
- Over x Instances at y Intervals From Start Date
Updates to two existing lessons in the Simple Transformation Techniques module:
- Working with Random Numbers
- Ranking Data
Updates made to the Power Query Recipes:
- Added an entire new section to the recipe collection that corresponds with the new Academy module on Allocations. Section 65 – Allocations Over Periods contains the following new recipes:
- Allocating Values Over Periods Between Two Dates (65.100)
- Allocating Values Over x Periods From a Start Date (65.101)
- Allocate Evenly to Each Day in Period (65.110)
- Allocate to Month by Days in Period (65.120)
- Allocate Evenly to each Month in Period (65.130)
- Allocate to Year by Days in Period (65.220)
- Allocate Evenly to each Year in Period (65.230)
- Allocate Over x Months from Start Date (65.310)
- Allocate Over x Years from Start Date (65.320)
- Allocate Over x Consecutive Days from Start (65.410)
- Allocate Over x Instances at y Intervals (65.420)
- Added two new recipes to Section 60 – Date & Time Techniques:
- Creating a Custom GetMonthEnds Function (60.850)
- Creating a Custom GetYearEnds Function (60.855)
- Updated a recipe in Section 70 – Miscellaneous:
- Add a Random Number to all Table Rows (70.100)
2021-12-20
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Retired two lessons from the Data from Relational Sources module:
- Connecting to a SQL Server Database
- Credentials and Privacy Settings.
- The topics from the retired lessons have been rolled into a new lesson:
- Connecting to SQL Server Databases
- Added three new lessons to the module:
- SQL Databases With Defined Relationships
- SQL Databases Without Defined Relationships
- Understanding Query Folding
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- Added a new recipe to section 20 – Reshaping Data:
- Pivoting Vertical Sets (Recipe 20.130)
- Updated existing recipes:
- Pivoting Stacked Data (Recipe 20.120) – name of the “Integer-Division” column updated to reflect new wording (was formerly “Integer-Divide”)
- Allocate over x Years from Start Date (Recipe 65.320) – the formula logic for the first period was corrected
- Random Numbers (Recipe 70.100) – note added that the recipe is now much easier with versions of Power Query released after October 2021
2022-03-31
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Most of the existing lesson videos and handouts updated to use the Skillwave Training branding (many still had the original Power Query Training branding)
- Updated Cartesian Products lesson (in the Merging Data module)
- Includes a new step to Remove the [MergeKey] column to reflect the updated Power Query UI
- Updated Approximate Match lesson (in the Merging Data module)
- Fixed an incorrect reference on Recipe slide in video
- Updated Grouping Data Sets practice lab
- Now references a new Azure database (original database no longer available)
- Added a new lesson in the the Data from Relational Sources module:
- Parameterized Queries in SQL Server
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- Added a new recipe to section 00 – Best Practice Architectures:
- Quickly Setting Data Type of All Columns (Recipe 0.550)
- Added a new recipe to section 70 – Miscellaneous:
- Choosing Columns vs Removing Columns (Recipe 70.130)
- Updated existing recipe in section 30 – Combining Data:
- Cartesian Products (Recipe 30.120)
2022-06-27
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Updated the Fuzzy Matching Basics lesson (in the Merging Data module)
- All new video and example files
- Updated the Sharing Queries lesson (in the Managing Queries module)
- All new video and example files
- Updated the Pagination and DO/WHILE lesson (in the Advanced M Techniques module)
- All new video and example files
- Have begun adding English captions to videos, starting with modules at the end of the course. Captions have so far been added to the 3 updated lessons mentioned above, as well as to all lessons in the following modules:
-
- Date & Time Techniques
- Allocating Values to Periods
- Query Optimization
- Bringing it All Together
Power Query Recipe Update:
- Added new recipe to section 20 – Reshaping Data:
- Shift Non-Aligned Columns Left (Recipe 20.160)
2022-09-28
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Added a new module called Dataflows (Power Query Online), which contains 8 lessons:
- Background to Dataflows
- Introduction to Dataflows
- Demo: Creating a Dataflow
- Demo: Using a Dataflow
- Computed Tables
- Power Query and Dataflows
- Taking control of a Dataflow
- Dataflows Summary
- Completed the English captions for all videos in the course, including those in the new module.
Power Query Recipes Update:
- Added a new recipe to section 20 – Reshaping Data:
- Unfill in Power Query (Recipe 20.170.2209)
2022-12-28
Added all content from our free Power Query Fundamentals course to the beginning of the Academy. The modules added are:
- Introduction to Power Query (5 lessons)
- Importing Basic Data (4 lessons)
- Query Settings (6 lessons)
Updated the module called Web Based Data Sources. The lessons contained in this module are:
- Basic “From Web” Concepts (NEW)
- Web Hosted Files (UPDATED, formerly named Files Publicly Hosted on the Web)
- Web Pages with Table Tags (UPDATED, formerly named Importing Web Data with Table Tags)
- Inferred Tables (UPDATED, formerly named Table Inference from Web)
- Tables from Example (NEW)
- NOTE: quiz questions for this module have been updated where needed to reflect the content
Added a new module called Advanced Web Techniques, which appears after Advanced M Techniques. The lessons contained in this module are:
- Parsing an HTML Web Page (UPDATED, formerly named Reading HTML Documents in the Web Based Data Sources module)
- Parsing HTML as Text (NEW)
- Basic Web Scraping (previously in Web Based Data Sources, content unchanged)
- Advanced Web Scraping (previously in Web Based Data Sources, content unchanged)
- Combining Multiple Web Pages (previously in Parameters and Custom Functions, content unchanged)
- Pagination and DO/WHILE (previously in Advanced M Techniques, content unchanged)
- NOTE: there is currently no quiz for this module
2023-03-31
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Updated existing lesson:
- Fuzzy Matching in Data Quality (in the Merging Data module)
- Added two new lessons:
- List of Values to Filter Columns (in the Advanced M Techniques module)
- Convert Calendar to Fin Year (in the Date & Time Techniques module)
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- Added two new cards:
- Recipe 35.200 – Append all Tables in the Current Workbook
- Recipe 60.950 – Convert a Julian Date to a Gregorian Date
- Updated an existing card:
- Recipe 60.530 (Fiscal Period Columns for 13 x 4-Week Calendars) – corrected the Fiscal Quarter formula
2023-06-29
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Added four new lessons:
- Convert UTC to Local DateTimes
- Switching Time Zones
- Convert UNIX Timestamp to Date
- Convert Julian to Gregorian Dates
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- Links to the new Power Query Academy lessons listed above have been added to the corresponding cards:
- Recipe 60.900 – Convert a Unix Timestamp to a Valid Date
- Recipe 60.910 – Convert UTC DateTime to Local DateTime
- Recipe 60.920 – Switching DateTimes Zones
- Recipe 60.950 – Convert a Julian Date to a Gregorian Date
2023-10-10
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Revamping of Simple Transformation Techniques module, including:
- Replacement of original Splitting Columns into Other Columns and Splitting Columns into Rows lesson with new Splitting Columns lesson that covers both transformations
- Complete update of the Filtering Data lesson
- Full updates to other existing lessons:
- Direct Connectivity in Power BI Desktop (in the Data from Relative Sources module)
- Power Query Values (in the M Deep Dive module)
- Retired both the Basic and Advanced Web Scraping lessons (in the Advanced Data Modeling module), as the website linked to in the original example is no longer available.
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- The caution note on Recipe 10.100 – Split Records into Columns has been adjusted.
- The Power Query Academy lesson link on Recipe 10.105 – Split Records into Rows has been updated to go to the revised Splitting Columns lesson.
- The steps in Recipe 20.150 – Remove Top x (Dynamic) Rows have been completely revised to reflect a better technique for this data transformation.
2023-12-22
- Added new lesson on how to Remove Top x (Dynamic) Rows from a data set (in the Advanced Data Reshaping module).
Power Query Recipes Update:
- Complete rewrite of Recipe 20.150 – Remove Top x (Dynamic) Rows to make it easier to build and avoid pitfalls related to defining your ‘dynamic value’ correctly. (Links to the new lesson mentioned above are also provided on the recipe card and the Table of Contents.)
2023-03-27
Power Query Academy Updates:
- Updated the Connecting to a PDF File lesson (in the Miscellaneous Data Sources module)
- The new video shows the updated UI as when this lesson was originally recorded, the PDF connector was a Beta feature.
- Updated the Basic Web Scraping lesson (in the Advanced Web Techniques module)
- This lesson was previously removed as the website used in the demo was no longer available. We have revamped the demo to connect to a new website and we’ve added the lesson back into the course.
2024-06-28
Power Query Academy Updates:
- New Semi Join lesson added to the Merging Data module
Power Query Recipes Updates:
- New recipes added to Section 30 – Combining Data:
- Left Semi Join – Recipe 30.117
- Right Semi Join – Recipe 30.118
- Recipe 30.100 updated to 9 Ways to Join Your Data