Off the Shelf - Collect, Combine, and Transform Data using Power Query in Excel and Power BI

If you're ready to learn Power Query at a more advanced level, advance your M language skills or develop a more in-depth understanding of Power Query, then Collect, Combine and Transform Data Using Power Query in Excel, and Power BI is the definitive guide for 2018 and 2019.

My introduction to Power Query was similar to most. I faced a data challenge, started doing some searches on Google, clicked on a few articles, watched a video or two. This basic research solved the immediate data problem I had, and I recognized early the many potential benefits of Power Query. My education advanced taking some online classes in Power Query and reading several blogs on the subject. The latest tome by Gil Raviv sets the bar high for learning and developing your Power Query fundamentals to the next level.

Chapter one is devoted to an introduction to Power Query, next up the reader is advancing skills to combining data from multiple sources, and that moves on to the fundamentals of preserving context and mismatched tables.

What sets this book apart are the variety and depth of exercises and specific annotation for Excel and Power BI users. More people are using Power BI as the entry point into Power Query and having a reference guide that addresses both groups of users is extremely helpful.

I read this book and went through the exercises from cover to cover, with over 30 hours of tutorials, learning and expanding my Power Query knowledge, I now feel like I have an in-depth understanding of Power Query and the capabilities this program for both Excel and Power BI.

Depending on your experience and how comfortable you are with Power Query, you can dive into the chapters that you have not worked on, or walk through a few of the exercises and use as a handy reference when a new data cleaning challenge comes your way. The chapters on Advanced Text Analytics and Social Network analytics will be helpful for readers with a Marketing background.  

If you are familiar with Pivot and Unpivoting or need to brush up on your skills, a chapter on Unpivoting tables takes a common task for many people and breaks down the process. Gil Raviv devotes a chapter to this technique and starts from an essential guide to an advanced tutorial after reading the chapter and completing the workbook exercises.

Collect, Combine and Transform Data using Power Query in Excel and Power BI most likely become the new standard in Power Query business books for advancing your skills.