How to use Power Query in Excel - Perfect Guide for Beginners (with FREE Sample Data)

If you have time to learn just one skill in 2025, make it POWER QUERY. This single technical skill can help you make massive gains in your data analysis work. Power Query is a data pre-processing engine built into Excel and Power BI. You can use it to bring data from anywhere and do pre-processing or clean‑up activities with ease. It lets you automate common data tasks like removing duplicates, combining files, merging (joining) datasets, adding derived columns, splitting or extracting data and changing the shape / size of your data. It is already there in Excel and Power BI. In Excel – go to the DATA ribbon and use the "Get & Transform Data" options. In Power BI – use the "Get data" or "Transform" buttons. Power Query and SQL have largely similar capabilities. But Power Query gives you more freedom and options. Plus, it is easier to learn (in my opinion). Happy learning. I wish you more POWER ⚡ in 2023. 0:00 - One skill you should learn in 2023 - Power Query, what is it? 2:02 - How to activate & use Power Query? 4:43 - STEP 0: Pre-cleaning the data 6:31 - STEP 1: Dealing with Blank data points 7:48 - STEP 2: Removing the duplicates 8:30 - STEP 3: Generating ID values 11:05 - STEP 4: Calculating Course Date from Registration Date 13:25 - STEP 5: Figuring out the Fee Status 15:39 - How to load the cleaned data back to Excel? 16:19 - Analysing the Power Query data and Refreshing