Hook:  Hard-coded paths are silent project killers. Move a file, share a workbook, or publish a PBIX—and boom: refresh fails. Goal:  In ~10 minutes you’ll set up robust, parameter-driven paths for Excel (Power Query) and Power BI (Desktop & Service), plus a tiny, reusable M pattern you can paste into any project. 1) Why hard-coded paths fail When you embed "C:\Users\Alice\Project\data.csv" in a query, anyone whose files live elsewhere (e.g., D:\Work\Data\) will get errors. I

Microsoft Power BI Desktop  contains a rich set of modelling and reporting features, yet many power users enhance their workflow with external tools . These tools attach to the Analysis Services instance behind a PBIX/Power BI semantic model and allow advanced editing, scripting, performance analysis and automation. The External Tools  ribbon lists all registered tools, and Microsoft warns that these are produced by independent developers; editing metadata outside Power BI De

Excel users often seek efficient ways to retrieve data from large spreadsheets. Two powerful functions that stand out in this pursuit are...

Goal:  a fast, self-updating Power BI report that tracks earthquakes in the European–Mediterranean region (with a global table for comparison), highlights activity hotspots, and surfaces clean KPIs for decision-making. Scope: Earthquakes in the European-Mediterranean region with magnitude 4.5 or greater within the last 720 days or the last 2 years. Source: ETH Zürich - Swiss Seismological Service (HTML daily data): http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/en/earthquakes/europe/last90daysMa

Power Query is often seen as a tool for just loading and cleaning data — but it offers far more than the basics. Most users rely on a...

Power BI’s Power Query (M language) allows creating custom functions and reusable query steps to simplify common tasks. Below are five...

Want faster refreshes and snappier previews? Here’s a practical, no-nonsense guide to making Power Query load much  quicker using only...

This post walks through the exact setup shown in your screenshots: folder-based CSV ingestion in Power Query, a tidy star schema, an FX...

Have you ever received an email with a link to download a CSV or Excel file, and wished it could just go straight into your Excel sheet...

When you're transforming data in Power BI or Excel using Power Query, you're bound to run into errors —mismatched data types, division by...

Power Query  is Microsoft’s powerhouse tool for data transformation and automation, built into Excel and Power BI. If you’ve ever spent...