Intermediate Power BI (session 4)

This is part of our intermediate-level Power BI desktop course. The course structure is as follows:

• session 1 (this session): a simple build-a-dashboard session as a warmup, reminder about core Power BI techniques, and sharing some suggestions for good workflow practices
• session 2: DAX language foundations, including FILTER and CALCULATE
• session 3: core PowerQuery functions to manage sources, join data sets, pivot, and tidy values
• session 4 (this session): PowerQuery M language foundations, including a basic overview of syntax, a core function toolkit, advanced mode, and reproducibility
• session 5: a second, more ambitious, build-a-dashboard session to put all that PowerQuery and DAX knowledge into practice

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Forthcoming session(s)

Booking link	Date
Intermediate Power BI (session 4)	13:00-15:00 Wed 26th November 2025

Session aim

• to introduce the PowerQuery M language

Where does this fit in?

• session 1: a simple build-a-dashboard session as a warmup, reminder about core Power BI techniques, and sharing some suggestions for good workflow practices
• session 2: DAX language foundations, including FILTER and CALCULATE
• session 3: core PowerQuery functions to manage sources, join data sets, pivot, and tidy values
• session 4: PowerQuery M language foundations, including a basic overview of syntax, a core function toolkit, advanced mode, and reproducibility
• session 5: a second, more ambitious, build-a-dashboard session to put all that PowerQuery and DAX knowledge into practice

Session outline

• what’s PQM?
• setting values and creating lists
• the Advanced Editor
• basic syntax: let/in
• defining and using functions

What’s PQM?

• formula language used in Power Query
• similar to Excel formulas

Getting started

• open Power BI
• create a blank report
• then click Tranform data to open PQ
• add a blank query

Add a value to that query

• you can edit PQM in the formula bar
• let’s start with the traditional expression: Hello world!
  • you don’t need quotes
• call this a primitive value

Task

• add "Hello world" to the formula bar

Lists

• an especially-useful kind of value: the list

Note

• make a new blank query
• in the formula bar, after the equals-sign, type a {, then some comma-separated numbers, then a closing }

Functions

• PQM has 700+ functions
• some can be used directly on values

Task

• update your hello world to = Text.Lower("Hello world") in the formula bar

Warning

• PQM is case-sensitive, unlike basically all the other Microsoft formula languages:

Query steps

• you can add query steps using the Add Step (\(fx\)) button:

Task

• Add a step, and insert the formula = Text.Proper(Source)

• Source in the formula is the name of your first step
• That should create a new step named Custom1

Advanced editor

• you can do more interesting work in PQM using the Advanced Editor

Task

• please open the Advanced Editor now

Advanced editor

• the advanced editor should contain your two query steps:

let
    Source = Text.Lower("Hello world!"),
    Custom1 = Text.Proper(Source)
in
    Custom1

let/in

• let statements are the basic structural building-block of PQM
• the let part contains a series of steps
• the in part returns the result of those steps

let

• each line of the let has a step name, and an expression:
  • name = expression
• each expression (apart from the source) refers to a previous step
• in our example, we make a step named Source, which contains our lowercase "hello world"
• we then pass it to a second step named Custom1 where we transform it into Proper Case

Task

• rename the second step to proper_case

in

• the in section is where we return a result from our query
• you’ll need to match the name in in to the correct stage of your query - almost always the last value

Task

• update line 5 (after the in) to use your new name for Custom1
• then select Done to return to Power Query - you should see your new step name in the Applied Steps menu

Query steps

• we can use the Advanced Editor to change the sequence of query steps

Task

• open the advanced editor

• break down your source step into two steps:

  1. a Source step, where we input the “Hello world” primitive value
  2. a lower_case step, where we use the Text.Lower function on Source

• make sure your lines end with , (except the final line of let and in)

• make sure your names link up correctly, and then apply the changes.

• you should see the change in your Applied Steps pane

Query steps

• your query should now read:
  
• those names should be reflected in the query steps view:
  

Nested let

• we could re-arrange our expression to use nested lets
• this is helpful when things grow more complex

let 
    lower_case = 
        let 
            Source = "Hello world!"
        in 
            Text.Lower(Source), 
            proper_case = Text.Proper(lower_case)
in 
    proper_case

Defining functions

• we can define functions of our own
• let’s make one now that prints “Hello world!” for us

Task

• make a new blank query and open it in the advanced editor populate with the code below

let
    hw = () => "Hello world!"
in
    hw

• hw here is an ordinary step name
• () will contain our parameters
• => defines this as containing a function

Naming functions

• that creates a new function
• note that the function name will correspond with our query name (it’s not the step name):
• we could use that function as-is:
• but properly-named functions are much more useful: do that by renaming the query as a whole to hw

Using functions

• functions defined in this way are global: we can use them in any other query
  • so hw() will work in Query1 to generate our Hello world! text: Source = hw()
  • the order of queries (Query1, Query2, etc) doesn’t affect function definitions and use
• but within a query, you’ll need to define a function before you can use it

Defining functions within queries

let 
    hw2 = () => "Hello world!",
    Source = hw2(),
    lower_case = Text.Lower(Source),
    proper_case = Text.Proper(lower_case)
in 
    proper_case

• hw2() has local scope: you can’t use it in other queries

Add a parameter

Note

• make a new blank query and name it lower_proper
• in the formula bar, define the function = (x) => Text.Proper(Text.Lower(x))
• check the parameter option that should appear below the formula bar:

Re-edit your original query

• to use lower_proper instead of Text.Lower etc

let
    Source = hw(),
    proper_case = lower_proper(Source)
in 
    proper_case

Bonus: types

• you can specify types in your function:

= (x as text) as text => Text.Proper(Text.Lower(x))

Resources

• an especially-helpful introduction to PQM