Power Query

Power Query

Description of the Power Query neural network

Power Query is a Microsoft tool for data preparation and transformation, designed to extract, clean, and combine information from many different sources. Unlike traditional approaches that require writing code, Power Query offers an intuitive visual editor. Thanks to close integration with Microsoft products — Excel, Power BI, and a standalone application — the tool lets you quickly process raw data and turn it into structured datasets ready for analysis and reporting.

Main purpose

Power Query’s main job is to simplify routine data operations. Instead of manually cleaning tables, removing duplicates, or combining several files, the user can do all of this in just a few clicks in the editor. The tool automates data preparation, reducing preprocessing time and lowering the chance of errors.

Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem

Power Query is built into Excel and Power BI, making it accessible to millions of users. In Excel, it is available as an add-in, and in Power BI it is part of the standard data loading and transformation process. There is also a standalone Power Query application that can be used independently.

Power Query characteristics

Characteristic	Value
Type	Data preparation and transformation tool
Developer	Microsoft
Platforms	Excel, Power BI, standalone application
Categories	Formulas and Excel, SQL and database queries, Presentations and reports
Distribution model	Free
Supported sources	Databases, web pages, Excel files, CSV, and other formats
Interface language	Russian and other languages (depending on the Microsoft Office version)

Who is the Power Query neural network suitable for?

Although Power Query is called a neural network in the context of an AI tools catalog, it is actually a classic ETL tool (Extract, Transform, Load) for working with data. It will be useful to a wide range of users.

Business analysts

Professionals who work with reports and pivot tables every day can quickly load data from different systems, clean it, and combine it into a single dataset without involving programmers. Power Query lets them focus on analysis rather than routine preparation.

Data specialists

Data analysts and professionals working with large amounts of information can use Power Query for initial processing: filtering, sorting, removing duplicates, grouping, and unpivoting data. The tool supports dozens of formats, making it easier to integrate heterogeneous sources.

Anyone who works with spreadsheets

Even users without deep technical skills can learn Power Query thanks to the visual editor. Any employee who regularly needs to combine data from several Excel or CSV files, remove unnecessary information, and bring it to a common standard will find a reliable assistant in this tool.

How to use the Power Query neural network?

Most operations in Power Query are performed with the mouse using the built-in editor. The tool is available in several forms, giving you flexibility in how you work.

Via Excel

In Excel, Power Query is built into recent versions. To get started, simply go to the Data tab and choose Get Data. The Query Editor window will open, where you can set up a connection to a source, apply the necessary transformations, and load the result back into an Excel table.

Via Power BI

In Power BI, Power Query is used automatically when loading data. The user sees the same Query Editor as in Excel and can perform all the same cleaning and combining operations. This is especially convenient when the final data is needed for building interactive dashboards and reports.

Standalone application

Microsoft provides Power Query as a standalone application. It can be used independently of Excel or Power BI — for example, to quickly process files without launching heavyweight office programs. The transformation result can then be exported in the required format.

Main features of Power Query

Power Query offers a wide range of data capabilities that cover most typical preparation tasks.

Data extraction, cleaning, and combining

The tool lets you connect to dozens of different sources: databases, web pages, Excel files, CSV, text files, and many others. After loading, the data can be cleaned — empty rows removed, formats fixed, values replaced, duplicates removed. Then different tables can be combined into one.

Combining tables and grouping without programming

The Power Query editor provides visual tools for merging and appending queries (the equivalent of JOIN and UNION in SQL). Users can choose columns to match, set the join type, and see the result immediately. Grouping data with aggregation (sum, average, count) is also done in a few clicks.

Unpivoting and pivoting data

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