Combine Data from Multiple Excel Files with Inconsistent Column Names

Check out our newly launched M Language course ↗️ - goodly.co.in/learn-m-powerquery/
In this video, we will learn how we can combine data from multiple excel files which contain different column names. We will also learn how to create a mapping table & plug that as the rename the inconsistent column names!
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===== CHAPTERS =====
0:00 Intro
0:20 Explanation of the Problem & Data
1:27 Understanding the Logic
3:55 Getting all the Column Names
8:01 Creating the Mapping Table in Excel
9:28 Combining the Data & plugging in the Mapped Table
15:47 Testing the Query
17:41 My Courses
===== WHO AM I? =====
A lot of people think that my name is Goodly, it's NOT ;)
My name is Chandeep. Goodly is my full-time venture where I share what I learn about Excel and Power BI.
Please browse around, you'd find a ton of interesting videos that I have created :) Cheers!
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[@attaturk87]

I don't understand why this channel isn't bigger, seeing that the solutions he gives is by far explained in such a way that most people understand. Keep up the good work Sir.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you think so!

[@rajendratiwari5321]

Very true, I learnt about this channel few weeks back only. Great!!

[@azizahmedkhan669]

absolutely true, i too believe this.

[@ankeshankesh]

I can't agree more!! Great work delivered seamlessly

[@EciekPeciek]

I agree. Goodly is Godly in what is he doing. Helped me many, many times

[@shyamadasgupta9423]

I am sure this is helpful to the excel experts. As a layman, I wanted step by step solution. Like starting right with the mapping tables. Everything was already created earlier, so i could not understand anything.

[@richardmartin7904]

Wanted to let you know this proved useful to me. My case was far more complex and I had to debug somethings...but it worked! Saves me like 90 minutes of work.

[@robkingston4518]

This rocks! Thank you for a great explanation on this topic!

[@calpoltab4681]

wonderful really, I had a tough time playing around inconsistent columns. A big thankyou 🙂

[@kuuuyajim]

Thank you for this tutorial...it's the perfect solution to the issue we are having with 100+ columns.

[@katiegordham872]

This was an EXCELLENT tutorial, thank you so much.

[@excelemployeeleavetracker1274]

This was great as always. I have been doing this another way without Table.Combine and List function.I need to wrap my head around Table.Combine and List as this would make it more dynamic.

[@jawadahmadehssan6251]

Thank you Chandeep. This is a common challenge faced while working with different data sets.

[@wayneedmondson1065]

Another awesome lesson! Thanks for providing the sample files too. Thumbs up!!

[@GoodlyChandeep]

My pleasure!

[@emilmubarakshin49]

This is soo amazingly helpful! Thank you!

[@maryjavasilyevna861]

Thank you so much! Easy and effective solution .

[@emanuelecostantinocatanzar3042]

This video is really GREAT. Thank you Chandeep for your outstanding way to explain the solutions.

[@mangixism]

Hey Chandeep, thanks for the really good videos. It's really fun to listen to you and above all you explain everything really well. Keep up the good work!

[@daveys]

Excellent video. I don’t think I could manage to replicate this but I found it a useful example of using PQ for wrangling data.

[@cjimmer4877]

I will add this to my favorites. I have seen many techniques to combine inconsistent column names. I like this one. The list accumulate method I do not understand or at least can't remember each time I need it. But this method is memorable.

[@user-ez5os8nm2z]

Excellent presentation. Thanks

[@anilb5836]

Thank you very much. I was working on such exercise since last 2 weeks and struggle a lot , referred many You tube videos but.... Hats up to you dear ...which helped to proceed further ..Very well explained ....

[@jerrydellasala7643]

Agree, Outstanding. NOTE: The Sales Data folder in the Zip file has two temporary files - names starting with ~ that are hidden and causing an error in the M Code. Just delete them to fix it. Also, change the folder path in the FolderLocation query, not the Data Source.

[@rajugsg]

You are a MASTER of excel. Glad that I found your channel and is really informative/educational and highly useful. This channel deserves a millions of subscribers 🎉❤😊

[@ahsaaah7247]

Hi, thank you for such a clear explanation. I hope you can help, not many people talk about this, but can we load each table as a separate data table? Or is it possible to horizontally combine all the tables if the date column is the same in all tables loaded here?

[@sarikavaidya6681]

Your vedios r very very good I basic learner will watch all one by one

[@sumardjo]

thanks tutorial and simple file to step by step thank you very much

[@eslamfahmy87]

Woow. You coverd every thing 😊 by easiest way

[@the_creator99]

Been looking for this recently! Saved my life! 🎉

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad I could help!

[@mumabird]

Omgggggggg you just saved my life. Thank you SO much ❤❤❤

[@tuomiallen3427]

I'm going to try this in my next assignment! Thank you! For the potential risk of wrongly aligned mapping table after a new file with new headers getting added, I wonder if a better way of doing it is to create a mapping table to be left joined to the dynamic column header table? It will still shows empty if a new table with new header gets added, but at least it won't map to the wrong thing after refreshed.

[@Bhavik_Khatri]

Excellent video. Thank you m8.

[@mrtfia]

Your videos are brilliant and you're so inspirational. You make it easy to understand the logic and then the code to apply the logic. This video has really helped me and I'd like to say a big THANK YOU !

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like it!

[@ubonguttah]

Amazing Work.

[@TheCraigie007]

Loved it ! A very smart solution to a very common issue.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you love it !

[@chankokseng1030]

i have watched alot videos and you are the best

[@shobhavenkatesh20]

Very well explianed.

[@simonsales]

Good lesson!

[@seamushand8439]

Very impressive. YOu have an incredibly deep understanding of the data structure

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you!

[@__HumanBeing]

Excellent video Chandeep! Thank you very much!

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like it!

[@umeshsawant2007]

This is really good .. got lot to learn

[@user-ju1it8wf2j]

It is so clever to transpose and convert to list of lists! :)

[@mukeshkadkol4759]

Superb ! Keep it up !

[@davidmora668]

Hi, thanks for your video, I was wondering if this method could be applied to combine csv files instead excel files.

[@MunnaBhaiUSA]

Life Saver Video!

[@januszb4494]

Thank you, I really needed this solution! :)

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was useful!

[@sanjaykapadiya]

amazing, thanks for detailed explanation, very easy to understand each step. Can you guide when new excel is added to source folder? How can those data automatically get loaded to Combined File?

[@santoshpv321]

A godly solution to a problem i have been facing for so long....Super.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it helped

[@anilkakade5793]

Thanks a lot ! It’s very helpful ❤

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was helpful!

[@patrickkinbonso1809]

I have applied the learning from this video to the task that I need completing and it works a treat, thank you Chandeep. One quick question. I have no problem doing this when I use Power Query in Excel. How do I do the same when I use Power Query from within Power BI please? Specifically, how do I load the "mapping" list from Power BI into Excel, so I can generate the "rename" column before loading the table back from Excel into Power BI to generate the "Renames" query? Thanks

[@TheMoh148]

Many thanks Chandeep, For mapping list of lists: It will be better to use Table.ToRows only Instead of table.Transpose + Table.ToColumns Regards Mohammed from Algeria.

[@happyheart9431]

Million Thanks

[@Will.Tru8]

this is amazing.. Thank You!

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Welcome Waleed!

[@Altaf_Alam]

Sir i have a question so kindly reply 😊 1. How can we create connections only on multiple tables at once through power query? Plz reply sir 🙏

[@andrewmorris8531]

This video is super helpful as are all the videos. I've learned so much from this channel. Question I have, in this video you create a custom column to create a table so we can see all the sheets within a file. Is it possible to filter to a particular sheet at this step BEFORE expanding the custom column? I have multiple excel files and each has mutliple sheets. One sheet on each file is over 600,000 rows, and I'd like to avoid loading that sheet when i click expand.Is this possible to do?

[@derekraghoonandan6750]

excellently executed (MASTER)

[@bodhanandannhattuvetty3179]

Very helpful video. Simple solution for a very common issue. Thank you very much for your effort to teach us.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it helped

[@danieladoro]

Thank you so much, this was very helpful

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ksbring]

wow, generating a list of all distinct column names for mapping is really genius. I also noticed that you faced the same problem of power query inserting rows in partial columns when query is refreshed which messes up the table. I got around this problem by using only VBA to refresh and disabling Explicit refresh. I don't think Microsoft is ever going to fix that.

[@zoomingby]

Hi there, thank you for this! What if the Excel sheets/files have different numbers of columns, which of course will have names not common to the other data sources/files?

[@DK_85]

Thanks a lot! Very well understandable :)

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like it!

[@karimallahwala7022]

Very good content and very useful.Thank very much

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was useful!

[@walkingonwter]

Thank you for another great view. i am struggling to keep source file name in the final output. is that possible to do ...could you please help

[@regihamp0206]

Wow that was hard work!! I used this on a folder full of csv files!! I followed you step by step and....it worked...OMG How do you know this stuff!! i would have never figured this out! thantks

[@ighorfontaine5075]

I have the same issue but doesn’t work because of the excel workbook function on csv files. Did you change the code? Thanks

[@sherinthomas801]

Another great video. We have all faced this issue sometime in our data combine journey. Thanks for laying it out so clearly. I would like to request you to create a video on setting up incremental refresh for files in sharepoint folder in Power BI. I have seen some solutions online but have never been able to get them to work. Thanks again!

[@idaeinjaw2139]

very useful thanks!

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was useful!

[@ExcelWorkshop.]

One of the best explanations

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks!

[@AbhayGadiya]

awesome, thanks for sharing

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like this!

[@domarregala5932]

one of the best tutorial keep on sharing

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you liked it!

[@janakchetri7731]

This is great, what if I wanted to get the columns from two other sheet side by side to each other. Eg. Sheet 1: col1 | col2 Sheet2: col3 | col4; Sheet3: col5 | col6 I want the output to be col1 | col2 | col3 | col4 | col5 | col6 In power query.. your inputs would be helpful. Looking to hear suggestions from others as well.

[@daler.abdulloev]

Great solution Chandeep 👌 Could you please show solution for xls (not xlsx) files ? Looking for ways to automated conversion to xlsx or way to combine and use xls :)

[@tiwarirr]

Simply Gold Content as always.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you 😊

[@abhijeetshetye3764]

Amazing and very useful video. Thnx sir

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it was useful!

[@AlvaroFreireAF1]

Great video! You save my day with this awesome tutorial 😁😁

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like this Alvaro!

[@lokesh221188]

Amazing 😍

[@abdulwahidtamboli5801]

Thanks a lot, the video helped

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad it helped Abdul !

[@shyamgupta963]

Really the videos that you post would be very helpful to those who works in the corporate world especially who into data and makes their job much easier. Thanks for your efforts and wish your dreams come true and achieve heights.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you for your inspiring words!

[@Dipakbohora]

I am a very big fan of this channel. Your teaching skill very good that even newbies can easily understand. Thank you very much for this trick.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you for the inspiring words!

[@ighorfontaine5075]

Very good, it’s a tricky method! I try it with csv files and it failed because of the excel workbook function. I’ll look for on my own but maybe you’ve already solved this problem. Thanks

[@suhaimiabdazais]

Really well explanation.. Just subscribed...

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Welcome aboard!

[@FRANKWHITE1996]

Thanks for sharing ❤

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks for watching!

[@Urgosandspirit]

Good solution, I like it What I can point out as improvement is the stability issue that you pointed out at 16:47 Indeed, you need to redo all of that because the table will store records which are not absolute, but some kind of position oriented based on content of the query behind it. I would say this is generally not a good practice to combine query generated table and manual input. Imagine you have multiple tables like that - it is extremely hard to control and spot the difference between them as at least they would be of the same color. My solution to such stability issues: 1. load the query table, but remain it intact - do not add anything to it manually 2. create another table manually and use different color theme (blue for example) so it is different from the query format 3. name this table and its columns absolutely same way and copy the query table content to your manual table - at this point you will have two tables which will be identical for its content 4. create data validation in manual table columns referring to the query table columns as a dynamic range using =INDIRECT("Table1[Column1]") string - you need to do it column by column 5. extend the manual table with new columns that you need - "rename" column in your example 6. add the controls through LEFT and RIGHT OUTER joins between the original query table and manual blue table to check the consistency - i.e., that you did not forget to include all of the entries to your manual table. Outcome of joins can be count or non-blank count that produces outcome of a check table with a single cell 7. merge the manual table with other query tables inside the query editor to achieve your goal Yes, it is much more than shown but it gives your control and automated ways to check the correctness of a process That's critical for a repeated exercise Thanks again!

[@HachiAdachi]

Good solution! I was also going to suggest a use of a manual table but didn't think of the data validation idea. Perhaps, your Step 6 can be an "exception" list which would display any items not present in the manual table so that it is clear what item(s) need to be added. Maybe with a dynamic array like this: =FILTER( OrigTbl[Column], ISERROR( XMATCH( OrigTbl[Column], ManualTbl[Column] ) ), "Mapping is complete" )

[@cdey2010]

wow, love it

[@sankhlayashraj]

Thank you Chandeep for this lovely video. Is there a way you can share a link to the video (if you have made) where we do merge different tables from sharepoint with different headers.

[@martyc5674]

Brilliant stuff- the best M channel 👌

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you !

[@tnssajivasudevan1601]

Excellent. Very useful

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you!

[@RamiAlhaddad]

Brilliant!!!

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks!

[@Jobin.Thomas]

Sir, how to learn all these codes/ syntaxes, video and explanation is awesome. Could you please suggest book or any material for this ?

[@SP_Investments]

As usual great 👍

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks !

[@ratiram9556]

Nice , I m being a regular viewer of your channel. keep the good work.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks, Keep watching!

[@jasonmxx]

hello, I have excel files with secondary sheets containing notes (not needed in the actual data table). @ around 4:30, is there a way to exclude these sheets from the list? Also, would like to learn how to Add a column for each table indicating the source file, so i can put a slicer on the visualization. thank you so much!

[@Anilkumarda4]

Thanks sir

[@patrickkinbonso1809]

Would this work when combining CSV with commas as delimiter please?

[@Sumanth1601]

Excellent content 😊

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks!

[@vadnerepravin]

Thank you 💗

[@GoodlyChandeep]

You’re welcome !

[@davidjosevarelagarcia7011]

Hi, Chandeep, great video, I have a database with several pdf files and each file is equivalent to a client with their monthly transactions, there are a total of 13 clients, when I import them to power querry, each file generates a different number of columns each month, each month has more or fewer columns and they don't have headers, I have to create them according to the information I need to extract, the information I need each month appears in different columns. All clients handle the same information, but in one month client 1 has 24 columns in its file, the following month 25, then 22, and the information I need changes my position in the same way and so on for the rest of the clients.some suggestion.

[@Gonza2432]

Thanks bro. Good video.

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Glad you like it!

[@rajendrakumaroram9812]

Really helpful❤️

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thanks!

[@suryatripathi3246]

Sir, I posted this question previously too. How to deal with filter function applied cells to form a table and sorting values using Power query. Another question is about using using sort function alone for two adjacent columns with filter function applied cells...

[@patrickkinbonso1809]

Hey Chandeep, how do I use this approach if I am using Power Query within Power BI instead of within Excel please? Thanks

[@KuldeepSingh-nq1vi]

Very Nice Video Bro, Can you please make videos on functions..

[@Lyriks_]

This guy is pure genius undiluted

[@franciscom.paredesarias2356]

Excellent solution to a recurring problem. Greetings from Chile

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Thank you!

[@shyamgupta963]

Its Just Awesome…. Is it possible in Excel 2016 version??