Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

6. Power Query Essentials

6.4 Applied Steps

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Every transformation appears as a step in Applied Steps. You can:

  • Click a step to see the data as it was at that point.
  • Rename a step (right-click › Rename) – use meaningful names like Removed blank rows.
  • Delete a step (click the ✕). Deleting a middle step may break later steps.
  • Edit settings using the gear icon next to steps that have a dialog.
  • Insert Step After or move steps up/down (right-click) – see Managing steps below.

Common automatic steps: Source, Navigation, Promoted Headers and Changed Type.

Good habit

Check the automatic Changed Type step. Power Query guesses types from sample rows and sometimes guesses wrong – for example PIN codes or product codes with leading zeros should be Text, not Whole Number. You can turn off automatic type detection in File › Options and settings › Options › Current File › Data Load.

Managing steps like a professional

Steps in Power BI

  1. Open Home › Transform data to launch the Power Query Editor.
  2. Make sure View › Query Settings is ticked so the Applied Steps list is visible.
  3. Right-click any step to see: Edit Settings, Rename, Delete, Delete Until End, Insert Step After, Move Before, Move After, Extract Previous, View Native Query, Properties.
  4. Use Properties to add a Description – it appears as a tooltip when you hover over the step. Good for documentation.
  5. Use Extract Previous to move all steps above the selected one into a new query (useful to create a reusable staging query).

Applied Steps mhanje tumchya kaamacha "recording". He samajla ki Power Query nimma samjla!

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

Mitrano, dhyan dya: clicking an earlier step and adding a transformation inserts the step there, and deleting a step that later steps depend on gives "column not found" errors. Maza sangna aahe, read the Insert Step? message before clicking, and rename important steps (not Changed Type1, Replaced Value3) so the query stays maintainable. Practice kara, mag ekdum sope vatel.

Practice task

Open your Blinkit Orders query, rename every step to a meaningful name (e.g. Promoted headers, Set data types, Removed cancelled test rows) and add a description to the two most khup important steps.