I love sharing little tips that once felt non-obvious to me but turned out to be huge time- and sanity-savers.
Since this week is all about Power BI, let me show you one of my favorites. And actually, we’re not talking about Power BI itself here, but about Power Query — the tool inside it that helps you clean and transform your data. One of its coolest features is Column from Examples. It’s a simple but super powerful way to reformat your data exactly the way you want — without writing formulas yourself.
Here’s how it works:
1. Pick the column you want to clean up.
2. Go to Add Column → Column from Examples → From Selection.
3. In the new column, type the result you’d like to see.
Power Query will try to figure out the pattern and apply it to the rest of the column automatically. Sometimes one example is enough, sometimes you need to give it two or three so it really “gets it.”
The best part? Power Query even shows you the formula it generated (I highlighted it in blue on the screenshots), so you can learn how to do it yourself if you ever need to.
Honestly, this trick has saved me so much time (and frustration 😅). Give it a try — I promise it’ll make your life easier.
See you in the next tip!
Photo by Samu Lopez on Unsplash