Announcing Power Query Data Types

We are excited to announce a new and exciting update to Get & Transform Data capabilities in Excel – Power Query data types! This tool will help you organize your data better and consume it easily.

Power Query data types are available as part of an Office 365 subscription . If you are an Office 365 subscriber, find out how to get the latest updates .

The following sections describe how create data types with Power Query and how to consume them in Excel.

Power Query data types

Power Query is a powerful and time-saving tool used to gather and analyze large sets of data by organizing them in a way that will make its consumption in Excel much easier. With this feature, you can create custom data types from any and load them in the Excel grid as rich values.

How to use it

Start with importing the data set using Power Query.

In the Power Query Editor, select the relevant columns, and then click the Create Data Type button on the Transform tab.

Define the data type name and choose a display column.

Notice the selected columns are collapsed into a single data type column and click the Close and Load button on the Home tab to load the query into Excel.

Easily consume and explore the output of the query in Excel with interactive data cards and formulas that reference your rich values.

Scenarios to try

Interact with the data types:

Check out the data type fields by clicking the icon the cell, and then open the associated card.

Extract fields to the grid by clicking the button. Use the data type fields in Excel formulas by referencing to a cell with a data type.

Refresh data types by clicking the button – from the data type context menu, the respective query context menu, or the Data tab in the Excel ribbon.

Requirements
To use Power Query data types in Excel, you must meet these requirements:
• You are in an organization with an Office 365 subscription .
• You are using Excel for Windows.

More Resources
Check out this video from one of Microsoft Excel’s Creators, Mynda Treacy from MyOnlineTrainingHub :