One of my goals with Budget Dust is to create a community of data junkies. A group that uploads new ideas and improves each other’s code and documentation. GitHub is a code hosting platform that makes version control and collaboration easier. It lets you and others work together on projects from anywhere. Read this short tutorial on what branches are and how to publish commits. Don’t worry if those words don’t mean anything to you, it’s easy to pickup with a little practice.
The M Code below enables FMers to quickly transform, raw unedited data inside Power Query in a consistent, reliable process. Simply copy/paste the code into the Advanced Editor in the Power Query Editor in either Excel or Power BI. Then simply insert your local file path at line #2 where it says “INSERT_YOUR_FILEPATH_HERE” and then run the code. Voilà, it works!
Crucial rules to adhere to when using other people’s M Code:
- Change the file path to your local machine or share drive
- In most cases, make sure the file name does not change day-to-day
- Download the file exactly the same way as the original code author intended
In future posts and YouTube videos, I will demonstrate step-by-step how to both implement the code and edit/improve the code on GitHub. As a community, let’s refine, improve and standardize our processes. In turn, we can create consistent reliable code used across the Air Force.