How to use the “COUNT” function in Power BI?

"COUNT" function in Power BI

The COUNT() is an important function in writing the DAX formula in Power BI used. It is one of the time intelligence functions of DAX, which means it can manipulate data using time periods like days, weeks, months, quarters etc. and then use them in analytics.

We apply DAX to slice and dice the data to extract valuable information. To import data from different data sources and perform required transformations we need to know the use of Power Query. If you are curious to know the difference between Power Query and DAX, Here is an article you may be interested in.

Use of COUNT() in Power BI

The syntax for count function is very simple, we have to pass only the column name as argument like below

Measure = COUNT (Table_name [Column_name])

Count function when applied on any column, it returns the count of cells containing numbers. So it returns only whole numbers and skips the blank cells. If any cell of a column does not contain anything (string, date or numerical) then the function returns blank.

Here is an example of the application of COUNT() on the data set I have on the rainfall of different Indian states. The dataset has three columns “SUBDIVISION” containing different ecological zones of the country, “YEAR” from 1901 to 2019 and “ANNUAL” containing rainfall in mm of the corresponding year.

Application of COUNT() in Power BI

I data I have collected from the web using the data scraping feature of Power BI desktop. Here is a glimpse of the dataset.

Glimpse of the rainfall data
Glimpse of the rainfall data

First, I have created a new measure using DAX (see here how can you create a new measure in Power BI). A measure has a default name “Measure” which I have changed to “Measure_count“.

Using COUNT() in a measure
Using COUNT() function in Power BI

Here you can see COUNT() is used to get the count of ANNUAL column cells having numbers. To see the result of COUNT() I have used a “Card”. The number “4090” in the card shows the cell count of the ANNUAL column having a number.

If we change the column and replace ANNUAL with SUBDIVISION, then the count function returns “4116”. This is because rainfall of all the subdivisions are not present in the ANNUAL column. We can check the difference and know how many subdivisions and year combinations do not have rainfall data.

The COUNTA() function

If a column consists of binary values like True and False, COUNT() fails to count them. To count such values COUNT() has another version which is COUNTA(). COUNTA() is for counting any logical value or text and also the empty cells of the column.

In this data set we dont have any logical values. If COUNTA() function is applied on the same columns i.e. ANNUAL and SUBDIVISION, the results are same as COUNT() gave.

The COUNTAX() function

For those columns which have values other than strings, digits, logical values, date like formulae then there is another useful variation of COUNT() which is COUNTAX(). It returns the count of non-blank rows evaluating the result of an expression on a table.

The DAX formula for COUNTAX() is:

COUNTAX ( <table>, <expression>)

It also returns whole number and unlike COUNTA() function, it iterates through the cells of that column, evaluates the expression and returns count of nonblank rows.

Here is an example of the application of COUNTAX() on the same table. I have used this function to calculate the count of row number of ANNUAL column for a particular YEAR in the rainfall table. I have used the FILTER() function nested under COUNTAX() to filter the particular rows corresponding to the YEAR=1910 and 2010.

Application of COUNTAX()

From the above figure we can see that the COUNTAX() function has returned two different whole numbers for two different years 1910 and 2010. This is because not all the SUBDIVISION has the record of annual rainfall for the year1910.

An overview of Power Query in Power BI

An overview of Power Query in Power BI

Power Query in Power BI plays the role of a data connection technology. It does the data mashup i.e. connect, combine and refine data from many sources to meet the need of our data analysis.

Power Query is available in Excel 2016 or later version of Excel. It can also be added in Excel 2010 as an add-in. It is mainly used for data Extraction-Transformation and Load (ETL) in Excel worksheet or Power BI model.

ETL is something which takes the major portion of time of a data analyst. To ease this task Power Query takes raw data from the source and convert to something more workable form. This form of data is easy to analyze and to draw insights.

Data sources for Power Query

Power Query in Power BI and Excel allows us to extract data from almost any external sources and Excel itself. Here are some examples of the external sources we can bring data from. And there are many more…

Some examples of external sources power query in Power BI can bring data from
Some examples of external sources power query in Power BI can bring data from

After the data has been extracted from the desired source, Power Query helps us clean and prepare the data.

Using Power Query, we can easily append or stack different data tables. We can create relationships by merging different data tables, group and summarize using Pivot feature provided by Power Query.

The beauty of Power Query in Power BI lies in the fact that all this data transformation does not affect the original data set. The data transformation happens in the Power BI memory and we can anytime get back our old data just by removing any particular data transformation step.

Applied Steps can be managed from Query Settings
Applied Steps can be managed from Query Settings

Once we have summarized the data extracted from diverse sources, the report can be refreshed with one click. Every time new data added in the source data folder, Power Query helps us to update the report accordingly with this refresh feature.

Flow of data processing by Power Query in Power BI
Flow of data processing by Power Query in Power BI

The M language and structure of Power Query

The M language is at the core of Power Query. It is the same as the F# language, case sensitive and contains code blocks starting with "let" and "in" as shown below.

let
     <em> variable </em> = <em> expression </em> [,....]
in
     <em> variable </em>

These blocks consists prcocedural steps of declaring and defining variables. Power Query is very flexible with physical position of these logical steps. That means we can declare a variable at the begining of coding and then can define at the last.

But such a type of coding with a different logical and physical structure is very tough to debug. So, unless absolutely necessary, we should maintain the same logical and physical structure of Power Query.

Editing the Power Query

Luckily we don’t need to write the Power Query in Power BI from scratch. It is already written in the background when we perform the data transformation steps. If it is needed we can tweak the Power Query to make desired changes.

First of all, we need to open the data transformation window by clicking the “Transform data” option in Power BI. Then the Power Query can be edited using either the “Advanced Editor” or editing the code for each “Applied Steps” of “Query Settings“.

Editing the Power Query in Power BI
Editing the Power Query in Power BI

The image below consists of an example of Power Query where the data is stored in a variable called “source“. Some other variables are also declared here to store the data with different transformation steps.

The programming blocks of M language

The variables can be of any supported type with a unique name. Only if the variable name contains spaces, then the variable must contain a hashtag in the beginning and enclosed with quotes. It is the protocol of declaring Power Query variables.

Power query Vs DAX: what is the difference?

DAX Vs Power Query

This article presents a discussion on Power query Vs DAX. As they can perform many similar tasks so it is very normal to get confused when to use which one. Except for some features in common these two are completely different in use and syntax.

Power Query performs the query from the source, through ETL process format and store the physical data tables in Excel or Power BI. DAX comes into the picture once the data is already queried from the source to calculate tables and different analysis.

Here we will briefly go through the concepts of these two with uses and example.

Power Query

It is a powerful query language and helps us build queries to mashup data. The name “M” of the M language which is actually behind the Power Query has come from “Mashup”. Power Query is available with Microsoft Excel 2016 Get & Transform and Power Query in Excel.

It is the M language syntax used in both Excel and Power BI Desktop. Mainly used for data Extraction, Transform and Load (ETL). ETL is an important step and allows us to start with our analysis tasks.

  • Power Query is used in both Excel worksheets as well as Power BI models.
  • It has lots of similarities in syntax with F# multi paradigm language which encompasses imperative, functional and object oriented programming methods.
  • Case sensitive and contains programming blocks with “Let" & “In
  • The user may need a little programming experience in order to create advanced data mashup queries.

Power Query is used for query-time transformations in order to shape the data while extracting it.

Uses of Power Query

As mentioned, Power Query is basically for data extraction from the source. So, if we need any kind of data transformation operation to perform, then we will do it using Power Query before loading it into Power BI.

Particularly in Power BI desktop, if we are clicking “Transform” instead of “Load” we are using Power Query or M to make a required transformation in the source data.

Example of Power Query
Example of Power Query

In the above image, we have an example of Power Query, used for calculating the length of the target text.

Suppose the source data has two columns with First Name and Last Name. And we want to concatenate them to create one single name column, then we should use M or Power Query to do that.

It can also be done using DAX but it will require several lines of codes. So better to use M for creating a new column, Pivot or Unpivot in Excel etc during ETL itself.

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)

DAX has few functions identical to Excel but many other functions too and way powerful than Excel functions. It is used for Power Pivot, summarize, slice and dice complex data. Unlike Power Query, DAX performs In-Memory transformation to analyze the extracted data.

DAX is a common language which can be found in SQL server analysis services Tabular, in Power BI and Power Pivot in Excel.

Use of DAX

As the name suggests, DAX is typically for data analysis tasks. After the data is already extracted, it is used for data modelling and reporting. Data analysis, slice and dice can be easily done with DAX.

It is very similar to Excel functions, does not have any programming blocks like M. So, any person has experience in Excel, can easily use DAX.

While creating Power BI report, DAX helps us to calculate Year to Date, calculate aggregates, ranges and several other analytical tasks easily with built in functions.

Use of DAX
Use of DAX

Here is an example of DAX in the above image. It is used here to create a new column for reporting. The new column calculated the total value of another column. Here you can notice the difference between the syntax of Power Query and DAX.

Final words on Power Query Vs DAX

Power Query and DAX are different. They are built with different purposes, they have different syntax and used in different stages.

Power Query is available both in Excel and Power BI. Users with Excel and the above version has this feature. Whereas DAX is exclusively available with Power BI.

The Data Analysis eXpression language is the far more advanced version of Excel worksheet functions. Still, DAX has many similarities with Excel functions hence easy to use as almost every one of us have experience of using Excel.

Both of them are required to use the Power BI platform to its full potential. You can not chose any one of them as they are specialized for different stages of a complete analytical tasks.

How to create new column from existing column Power BI

create new column from existing column Power BI

Create new column from existing column in Power BI is very useful when we want to perform a particular analysis. Many times the new column requires clipping a string part from an existing column.

Such a situation I faced a few days back and was looking for a solution. And this is when I again realised the power of “Power Query“. This article is to share the same trick with you.

If you are new to Power BI, then I would suggest going through this article for a quick idea of its free version, Power BI desktop. It has numerous feature for data manipulation, transformation, visualization, report preparation etc.

Here are some popular application of Power BI as a Business Intelligence tool.

This article covers another super useful feature of Power BI. Adding a new column derived from the existing columns are very common in data analytics. It may be required as an intermediate step of data analysis or fetching some specific information.

For example, we may need only the month or day from the date column, or only the user-id from the email-id list etc.

In this article I will demonstrate the process using the data sets related to India’s state-wise crop production and rainfall data.

Lets start the process step by step and see how I have done this.

Use of “Add Column” and “Transform” options

Power BI desktop offers two options for extracting information from an existing column. Both the options namely “Add column” and “Transform” has different purposes altogether.

create new column from existing column Power BI
Create new column from existing column Power BI

Add column option adds a new column extracting the desired information from the selected column. Whereas the Transform option replaces the existing information with the extracted text.

Here our purpose is to create new column from existing column in Power BI. So let’s explore the “Add Column” feature and the options it offers.

Create new column from existing column Power BI with “Add column” option

First of all, you need to open the “Power Query Editor” by clicking “Transform data" from the Power BI desktop. Here you will get the option “Extract” under the “Add column” tab as shown in the below images.

Extracting the “Length

This option is to fetch the length of any particular string and populate the new column. See in the below example, I have created a new column with the length of the state names from “State_Name” column.

Extracting length
Extracting length

The power query associated with this feature is as given below. The M language is very easy to understand. You can make necessary changes here itself if you want.

= Table.AddColumn(#"Changed Type", "Length", each Text.Length([State_Name]), Int64.Type)

Extracting the “First Characters

If we select the “First Character” option, then as the name suggests, it extracts as many characters as we want from the start. As shown in the below image, upon clicking the option, a new window appears asking the number of characters you want to keep from the first.

As a result, the new column named “First Characters” contains the first few characters of our choice.

Extracting first characters
Extracting first characters

Extracting “Last Characters

In the same way, we can extract the last characters as we need. See the below image, as we select the option "Last Characters", again it will prompt for the number of characters we wish to fetch from the last of the selected column.

Last characters
Last characters

As we have provided 7 in the window asking the number of characters, it has extracted a matching number of characters and populated the column “Last Characters”.

Extract “Text Range

This option offers to select strings from exact location you want. You can select starting index and number of characters from the starting index. See the bellow example where I wished to extract only the string “Nicobar”.

Keeping this in mind, I have provided 12 as the starting index and 7 as the number of characters from the 12th character. The result is the column “Text Range” has been populated with the string “Nicobar” as we wanted.

Extracting text range
Extracting text range

Extracting using delimiters

Another very useful feature is using delimiters for extracting necessary information. It has again three options for using delimiters, which are:

  • Text Before Delimiter
  • Text After Delimiter
  • Text Between Delimiter

The image below demonstrates the use of the first two options. As the column “State_Name” has only one delimiter i.e. the blank space between the words, so in both the cases, I have used this delimiter only.

You can clearly observe differences between the outputs here.

Use of text before delimiters
Use of text before delimiters

The script for executing this operation is given below.

= Table.AddColumn(#"Removed Columns", "Text After Delimiter", each Text.AfterDelimiter([State_Name], " "), type text)

Below is the example where we need to extract text between the delimiters. The process is same as before.

Text between delimiters
Text between delimiters

The code is as below.

= Table.AddColumn(#"Inserted Text After Delimiter", "Text Between Delimiters", each Text.BetweenDelimiters([State_Name], " ", " "), type text)

Another example with different delimiters

Below is another example where you have some delimiter other than the blank space. For example one of the columns in the data table has a range of years. And the years separated with a “-“.

Now if we use this in both cases of text before and text after delimiter, the results are as in the below image.

Use of text before delimiters

Use of “Conditional Column

This is another powerful feature of the Power BI desktop. Where we create a new column applying some conditions to another column.

For example, in the case of the agricultural data, the crop cover of different states have different percentages. And I wish to create 6 classes using these percentage values.

First, open the Power Query Editor and click the “Conditional Column” option under the “Add column” tab. You will see the window as in the below image.

The classes will be as below

  • Class I: crop cover with <1%
  • Class II: crop cover 1-2%
  • Class III: crop cover 2-3%
  • Class IV: crop cover 3-4%
  • Class V: crop cover 4-5% and
  • Class VI: crop cover >5%

See the resultant column created with the class information as we desired.

Use of conditional column
Use of conditional column

Using DAX to create new column from existing column Power BI

We can also use DAX for creating columns with substrings. The option is available under the “Table tools” in Power BI desktop. See the image below.

New column option in Power BI Desktop
New column option in Power BI Desktop

Now we need to write the DAX expressions for the exact substring you want to populate the column with. See the image below, I have demonstrated few DAX for creating substring from a column values.

Comparing to the original values you can easily understand how the expressions work to extract the required information.

Creating column with substrings
Creating column with substrings

Combining values of different columns

This is the last function which we will discuss in this article. Unlike fetching a part of the column values, we may need to combine the values of two columns. Such situation may arise in order to create an unique id for creating keys too.

Likewise here my purpose was to combine the state name and corresponding districts to get a unique column. I have used the COMBINEDVALUES() function of DAX to achieve the goal.

See the below image. I have demonstrated the whole process taking screenshots from my Power BI desktop.

Use of COMBINEDVALUES function
Use of COMBINEDVALUES function

I have tried to cover the steps in a single image. The original two column values as well as the combined value columns are shown side by side so that you can compare the result.

Final words

In this blog I have covered several options available in Power BI desktop for creating new column extracting values from other columns. We frequently face such situation where we need to create such columns in order to get desired analysis results or visualization.

I hope the theory explained along with the detailed screenshots will help you understand all the steps easily. In case of any doubt please mention them in the comment below. I would like to answer them.

How to add data from website to Power BI desktop

Add data from website to Power BI desktop

Different webpages are rich source of data. Either structured or unstructured, these data are very useful and can provide good insights.

Power BI has recently added and enhanced the existing feature of data extraction from the web. This feature was already compelling, with the recent enhancement it has become even more powerful.

In this article I will discuss this feature in detail with a practical example.

A practical example of web scraping with Power BI desktop

I have a data set with information on state-wise crop production in India. The data was collected from data.world. I have discussed this data and how I have analyzed it with the Power BI desktop in this article.

Now my purpose was to analyze this crop production data in context with India’s economic growth. As we know that any country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) are very good indicators of its economic growth.

So we need to collect this data in order to correlate the state wise crop production with GDP and GSDP of corresponding state.

But the problem is such data is not readily available. So…..

Is web scraping an alternative option?

In this scenario, web scraping is generally the only solution.

You can read this article to know how to write web scrapers with python to collect the necessary information.

But writing a web scraper with Python needs coding knowledge. It is not possible for a person with zero knowledge in software development or at least any single programming language (preferably Python).

Add data from website to Power BI desktop

Here comes Power BI desktop with its immense powerful feature to add data directly from the website. It is really a boon for the data analysts/scientists who want this data import process smooth real smooth.

It does not require any software development background. Anyone with no idea about any programming language at all (really!!) can use it.

So without any further ado, lets jump to see how you can also do the same.

The data source

I will use an authentic website like Wikipedia for open-source data. A data source that has unquestionable authority. If you simply search Google with the search query “Indian states and union territories with their GDP” the first result you will get is from Wikipedia.

Google search result for Indian GDP
Google search result for Indian GDP

Importing the data from website to Power BI desktop

Power BI allows importing data from numerous sources as I have mentioned in the introductory article on Power BI. Among several sources, one is from “Web“.

As you can see in the below figure, you need to select the “Web” from “Get data” option under “Home” tab. Consequently, a new window will open where the URL is to be provided.

Importing data using URL of particular website
Importing data using URL of particular website

If you have already imported the data once from a website, then the address gets stored in “Recent sources“. It will help you to quickly import the data in case you need the data again to import.

"Recent source" of previously used website URL
“Recent source” of previously used website URL

As you provide the URL, it will first establish a connection to fetch the data. Next, a “Navigator” will open to show you a preview of the data.

See the below screenshot of the Power BI app on my computer; on the left side, all the tables from the web page will be listed. You can click the particular table you are interested and the table preview will be displayed on the right-hand side.

Navigator and table view
Navigator and table view

Similarly, if you want to get a glimpse of the web view, just click the “Web view“. A web view of the page will be displayed as shown below.

Web view of the page
Web view of the page

Transform/load data to Power BI desktop

Now if you are satisfied and found the particular information you are looking for, proceed with the data by clicking “Load” or “Transform". I would suggest going for the transform option as it will enable you to make the necessary changes in the data.

As I have shown the data below before loading it in Power BI. With the help of Power Query, I have made minor changes like changing the column name, replacing the blank rows or replacing the “Null” values, adding necessary columns etc.

I have already described all these operations in data transformation steps here.

Window for data transformation
Window for data transformation

Once you are satisfied with the table you created, you can load it in Power BI for further processing.

Add table using examples

Another very useful feature is to "Add table using examples". As you can see this option at the bottom left corner of the window in the below screenshot.

Add table using example
Add table using example

This option is very helpful when the tables Power BI automatically shows do not cater to your purpose.

Suppose for the above web page you can see almost all the structured data in table form on the left pane. But you are looking for some information which is scattered on the page and not in a table form.

In that case, if you click the option “Add table using example” you will be provided with a blank table along with the web view as shown in the above image.

Upon clicking the row of the table Power BI provides several options which you can choose from to fill the table. As shown in the above image, some information with no table structure are there to populate the table.

You can also add several columns by clicking on the column header with “*”. Also change column name or later at the data transformation stage.

Final words

So, I hope this article will help you to collect required information from any web page using this feature of Power BI. It is very simple to use only you need to be aware of its existence.

My purpose was to provide you with a practical example of real world data which will make you familiar to this feature. And also to document all the steps for my future reference.

For data analysts and those who just want to get their desired data, writing web scrapers is pure time waste. I myself have written several web scrapers. It obviously has some benefits and can get you some very specific data from several webpages.

But if your data is not scattered in multiple webpages and can be fetched from specific URL, Power BI is your best friend. It will save your lots of time of collecting data and you can straight way jump to the main task of data analysis.

If you find the article helpful, please let me know commenting below. Also if you have any question regarding the topic I would love to discuss with you.

How to join tables in power bi desktop: a practical example

Join tables in Power BI desktop

Joining tables is an important feature to combine information from several tables. We can join tables in Power BI desktop with a very nifty merging feature provided with it..

In this article, I am going to demonstrate how to join tables in Power BI desktop with some practical data. The data are all open source. You can collect them from the links provided and use them to practice.

Combining data

When it comes to combining data in tables, it can be done in two ways. One is you may need to increase the rows of a table with new data. This type of data combination is known as “Appending“.

Whereas when you add columns with new information with an existing table, it is called “Merging“.

Power BI provides both of these features under the “Home ” tab (as in the below figure). You need to use them according to your requirement.

Merge and Append queries
Merge and Append queries

This particular article is on joining tables. So we are going to discuss the Merge queries option here only with suitable example.

Lets first discuss different kinds of joins. This will be an overview so that you can make the right decision while selecting join types while merging queries. Also will suggest going through the Microsoft documentation page for details.

The data set

The data set I have used for demonstration purpose is on India’s state-wise crop production collected from data. world. And another data set with India’s state-wise rainfall from different years.

Both the data set presents a real-world experience. The data is collected in raw form and refined using data transformation feature of Power BI. You can go through all the data transformation steps here.

The measures used for different calculations are described in this article.

The first table that is the crop production table contains the area under different crops in hectare (ha) respective to different districts of different Indian states. Whereas the second table i.e. the rainfall table has the rainfall record in mm respective to different districts of Indian states.

Replacing/removing errors

While importing the data from the CSV file or from the web itself, you may face some missing values. When it gets imported in Power BI, the missing values are shown as “Error“.

Now you can not proceed without handling these errors. One way is to replace these errors with proper values. It may be mean or median of rest of the values of particular variable or you can simple remove the rows with missing values.

In the below screenshot you can see how I have replaced the error with a suitable descriptive value. The “Remove errors” option will simply remove the corresponding rows.

Now suppose we want information on both the cropped area as well as rainfall of particular state and districts. Then we need to join the tables with proper conditions.

Different kinds of join tables in power bi desktop

Now Power BI will ask you about the particular join type you are interested to apply. And in order to use the correct join, we should have the idea about different joins. So here is a vivid description with examples of different joins.

For demonstration purpose I have picked few rows from both the tables and created two tables.

Left outer join

It is a prevalent joining process and the default one in Power BI, where the left or 1st table (as in the figure below) retains all of its rows and matching rows from the right or 2nd table. As the text from “Merge queries” option of Power BI displays “All from first, matching from second“.

Suppose we want to know the rainfall of some particular districts with a definite amount of cropped area. So how will you join the two tables to fetch the information? Here is left outer join to help you. See the below figure

Left outer join

In the above figure the particular information we are interested are colored as green cells. The corresponding information has the same color code in the second table.

So, as per the rule of the left outer join, all the rows (yellow coloured) of the left table and the green-coloured rows of the right table has been joined in the new table.

The Venn diagram at the bottom right corner describes the joining process in colour codes. According to this diagram, the matching rows are called the interaction of the two sets. So here the new table consists of the complete left set and the interaction of the sets.

Right outer join

Now suppose we are interested to know the information exactly opposite to what we have fetched earlier. This time we want to know the cropped area of districts having particular rainfall. So, here the right outer join we need to perform.

Right outer join  of tables in Power b
BI desktop
Right outer join of tables in Power b
BI desktop

Full outer join

When we are in need of information of all the states and districts with their cropped area and rainfall, we should go for a full outer join. As the name suggests, this join will return all the records including the matching ones.

Full outer join of tables in Power BI desktop
Full outer join of tables in Power BI desktop

Here is the final output from the full outer join. The rows contain both the rainfall and cropped area information including the matching rows (in green colour).

Inner join

Again if we need information on the rainfall of those districts with cropped area data as we have nothing to do with rainfall data for those districts not having any cropped area information. In this situation, the inner join produces the desired result.

See the below figure where we have applied inner join on both the tables.

Inner join of tables in Power BI desktop
Inner join of tables in Power BI desktop

See in the above image, only the matching rows are kept and all other rows have been excluded.

Left anti join

Suppose for the sake of data analysis, we need only those states and respective districts for which we don’t have any rainfall data, how can we fetch the required information?

Not to worry here the particular join type we need to apply is left anti join. Which will keep all the rows from the left table removing all those which have a match in the right table. See the below example.

Left anti join of tables in Power BI
Left anti join of tables in Power BI

Here in the above image we just have the required information from the left table of state wise cropped area and everything else have been excluded.

Right anti join

Now suppose we need information exactly opposite the earlier one i.e. we need only the rainfall data of all those districts for which we don’t have any information on the cropped area. The join we will apply here is right anti join.

See the below demonstration with the two tables.

Right anti join of tables in Power BI
Right anti join of tables in Power BI

In the above figure, the crop production tables have been joined with the rainfall table using the right anti join. You can see that all the rows of rainfall table have been retained excluding the matched rows from the crop production table.

Join tables in Power BI desktop

Now lets see a practical application of joining tables in Power BI desktop.

When you click the merge query option of Power BI desktop, you will see the first table as the active table (the selected able while clicking the merge query option).

You need to select a column from the table with unique values and can act as a key. Then a drop-down will allow to chose from the available tables. Again you have to select another column from the second table using which both the tables can be joined.

Then you need to select the particular join option from the drop-down as shown below. All the join options are available in the same sequence as we discussed above.

Join tables options in Power BI desktop
Join tables options in Power BI desktop

For example here in the above image, you can see I have selected column “State_name” from the table “India_statewise_crop_production” and the column “SUBDIVISION” from the second table “rainfall_India” as the key columns for joining.

Now our purpose was to keep all the crop production information with matching rainfall data of the corresponding districts. So, I opted for “Left outer join” which is also the default option. You can choose any of them as per your requirement.

Now simply click and see the operation in process.

Selecting rows from the joined table

Now the newly created column will appear in the table. You can see in the below image that the whole table is displayed as a column. So you need to select the particular column and deselect the option “Use original column as prefix“.

Selecting particular column from merged table

See in the above image, by default the complete table appears as row element in the first table. You need to select the particular columns of the table you want here.

Use of advanced editor

Use of advanced editor of Power BI allows more flexibility to change the M script itself yo make desired changes in the output. The M language is at the core of every Power BI application.

See in the below image, the option “Advanced Editor” under the “Home” tab shows the M script behind the particular application. You can tweak them to change the join type or column names etc.

Editing M script for Joining tables in Power BI desktop
Editing M script for Joining tables in Power BI desktop

Final words

So, here is all about on join tables in Power BI desktop. I have tried to cover all the basics of each kind of join with examples. So that the you can understand the logic behind the joins. And apply the right kind for your need.

Joining tables and fetching the exact information is the core of data modelling. In order to obtain a good visual representation of the Power BI report, a good data modelling is must.

I hope this article will help you to get a good grip on this very fundamental operation of Power BI. If you have queries or doubt, please comment below. I would like to answer them.