Power Query: More Haste Less Steps Part 1

Welcome to our Power Query blog.  This week, I look a query with too many steps.

I have created a Dates query:

I have deliberately gone the long way round to create this query!  Ignoring the first three [3] steps, it has taken me twelve [12] steps to achieve my goal.

The first task was to create a Month Name column with a short month name.  This takes up six [6] steps.  First, I duplicate the Date Column, creating a ‘Duplicated Column’ step:

Then I use the Date transformation on the Transform tab to convert the new column to hold the ‘Name of Month’, creating an ‘Extracted Month Name’ step.  

Next, I used ‘Split Column’ on the Transform tab to split the column ‘By Positions’, creating a ‘Split Column by Position’ step:  

This automatically generated a ‘Changed Type1’ step.  I then had to delete the unwanted column, creating a ‘Removed Column’ step and rename the one I wanted to keep to ‘month’, creating a ‘Renamed Column1’ step:  

I then took another five [5] steps to create a ‘Quarter’ column.  I duplicated the Date column again (Duplicated Column1) and used the Date transformation again, this time to get the Quarter, creating a ‘Calculated Quarter’ step.

I then decided I wanted to have a ‘Q’ in front of it, so I converted the column to data type text using the dropdown from the data type icon, creating a ‘Changed Type2’ step:

I then added a ‘Custom Column’ from the Home tab to add the ‘Q’ (‘Added Custom’):  

Then I deleted the Date – Copy column which held the original quarter value (‘Removed Column1’) and decided to rename the month column to ‘Month Name’ (‘Renamed Column2’).  

Next time I’ll have a look at how this number of steps may be reduced whilst still using the User Interface (UI).  How many steps do you think I will need?

Come back next time for more ways to use Power Query!