Excel Agility: Power Queries Made Easy

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If you’re overwhelmed by messy spreadsheets, inconsistent data, and tedious manual updates, it’s time to discover Power Query, the ultimate data-cleaning and automation tool built right into Excel. This powerful, no-code feature allows you to effortlessly import, transform, and organize your data with just a few clicks - no formulas or VBA required. Whether you're dealing with multiple files, misaligned headers, or repetitive formatting tasks, Power Query simplifies the process and gives you back your time.

In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to use Power Query’s intuitive interface to clean up raw data, merge sheets, fix formatting issues, and automate routine processes. You’ll explore how to connect to different data sources, eliminate duplicates, split and combine columns, and set up repeatable queries that update your data in seconds. By the end of the webinar, you’ll be able to streamline your workflows and dramatically reduce the time you spend preparing data, freeing you up for the analysis and insights that matter most.

Your Benefits for Attending:
  • Discover what Power Query is and how to access it in Excel
  • Learn to import and connect to data from spreadsheets and external sources
  • Clean and reshape data without writing a single formula
  • Eliminate duplicates, fix column headers, and split/merge columns with ease
  • Combine data from multiple worksheets, files, or folders into one streamlined dataset
  • Automate recurring data prep tasks with reusable queries
  • Instantly refresh updated data sets with one click

This session will benefit anyone looking to eliminate repetitive Excel tasks, automate their workflows, and gain control over chaotic data. The techniques shared will improve efficiency, reduce errors, and increase productivity in everyday reporting tasks.

Who Should Attend:
This session is ideal for intermediate Excel users who frequently manage reports, exports, or large datasets. Perfect for analysts, HR professionals, finance teams, administrative staff, and anyone tired of manually cleaning and combining data. No prior experience with coding or Power BI is necessary.

Requirements:
Participants should have Excel 365 or Excel 2016 or later. While Power Query is available in Excel for Mac, some features may vary from the Windows version; however, Mac users will still benefit from the foundational skills and workflows demonstrated.

Level: Intermediate
Format: Live webcast
Instructional Method: Group: Internet-based
NASBA Field of Study: Computer & Software Applications (2 hours)
Program Prerequisites: None
Advance Preparation: None

  • Mike Thomas

    Mike Thomas

    Mike Thomas has worked in the IT training business for 26 years. His expertise and experience covers designing and delivering training courses, creating written training materials (Quick Reference Guides and step-by-step tutorials), recording and editing video-based tutorials and providing support t [...]

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Webinar Survey Overall Rating

This webinar received a total of 4 survey responses. Attendees have given an average rating of 4.6 stars out of a possible 5, reflecting the quality and value of the content presented.

Average rating

4.6 / 5
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How many of the objectives of the event were met?
4.5 Stars
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5.0 Stars
Overall, how satisfied were you with this event?
4.3 Stars
Speaker Performance
Overall, how satisfied were you with this presenter?
4.5 Stars
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4.5 Stars

Reviews From Webinar Survey

Our webinars are crafted to deliver exceptional value and insight to business professionals. Below, you'll find genuine feedback from attendees.

Bill B.
March 16, 2026
4.4 / 5
Webinar Rating:
4.3 Stars
Speaker Rating:
4.5 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Very meaningful
Katie M.
March 11, 2026
4.4 / 5
Webinar Rating:
4.3 Stars
Speaker Rating:
4.5 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Excellent presenter!
Morgyn D.
March 11, 2026
5.0 / 5
Webinar Rating:
5.0 Stars
Speaker Rating:
5.0 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
This event topic was extremely relevant to me, and the presenter was awesome. He was very knowledgeable about excel, and was great at explaining what he was doing, and why. A very great teacher!
Cindi F.
March 11, 2026
4.4 / 5
Webinar Rating:
4.7 Stars
Speaker Rating:
4.0 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Examples that contain multiple steps or reports to use same data in Power Query for different reasons

Frequently Asked Questions

Power Query is a no-code data transformation engine built into Excel (available in Excel 2016 and later, and all Microsoft 365 versions) that lets you import, clean, reshape, and automate data preparation tasks without writing formulas or VBA. It connects to a wide range of data sources including Excel files, CSV files, folders of files, databases, and web pages. Once connected, you use Power Query's visual editor to apply transformations—removing duplicate rows, renaming columns, filtering out unwanted data, splitting combined fields, filling blank cells, and changing data types—all through simple point-and-click steps. Each transformation is recorded as a step in a saved query. When your source data changes, a single click on Refresh updates your cleaned output instantly, re-applying all transformations automatically. Power Query eliminates the most time-consuming part of Excel work—manual data cleanup—and makes that cleanup process repeatable and auditable. For analysts, finance teams, HR professionals, and administrators who routinely prepare data for reporting, Power Query is the single most impactful Excel productivity tool available, and is the focus of Aurora Training Advantage's Power Queries Made Easy webinar with Mike Thomas.
Power Query can connect to a remarkable variety of data sources, all accessible through Data > Get Data in Excel. For Excel files, use From Workbook to connect to another .xlsx file and select specific sheets or named tables. For CSV or text files, From Text/CSV handles delimiter detection and data type assignment automatically. The From Folder connector is especially powerful—it points Power Query to a folder of files (such as monthly export files) and combines all matching files into a single dataset automatically, refreshing to include new files as they are added. For databases, Power Query connects to SQL Server, Access, Oracle, and many others through From Database options. Web data can be pulled from URLs using the From Web connector. All connections are stored as reusable queries that can be refreshed independently or together. Each source type includes settings for handling headers, data types, and encoding. For business professionals dealing with recurring data from multiple systems—accounting software, CRM exports, database reports—Power Query's connection library makes ingestion and standardization a one-time setup task rather than a monthly manual chore.
Power Query provides a comprehensive toolkit for cleaning messy data without writing formulas or manually editing rows. To remove duplicate rows, select the relevant columns in the Power Query Editor and click Home > Remove Rows > Remove Duplicates—Power Query keeps the first occurrence of each duplicate set based on the selected columns. For text cleaning, the Transform tab offers Trim (removes leading/trailing spaces), Clean (removes non-printing characters), and Uppercase/Lowercase/Capitalize Each Word for standardizing text case. Column headers with inconsistent names can be renamed with a double-click. Data type corrections—changing a column from text to number or date—are applied via the data type icon in each column header. The Replace Values tool handles find-and-replace for inconsistent category names, abbreviations, or codes. Fill Down populates blank cells by repeating the last non-blank value above—essential for data exported from systems that only show a category label on the first row of each group. All cleaning steps are saved and re-applied automatically on every refresh, turning a tedious manual process into a reliable, repeatable automated pipeline. Aurora Training Advantage's Power Queries Made Easy webinar walks through these techniques step by step.
Power Query offers two primary methods for combining data from multiple sources: Append and Merge. Append stacks tables on top of each other—ideal when you have the same data structure across multiple files or sheets (such as monthly sales exports) and want to combine them into one unified dataset. The From Folder connector automates this by pointing Power Query to a directory and appending all files matching a specified pattern automatically. Merge (similar to a database JOIN) combines two tables side by side based on a common key column, equivalent to a VLOOKUP but more powerful and dynamic. When combining worksheets within the same workbook, you can query each sheet individually and then append the resulting queries together. Power Query handles mismatched column orders automatically when appending, aligning columns by name rather than position. This is transformative for organizations that receive the same report template from multiple departments or regions monthly—instead of manually copying and pasting, a single Refresh combines everything instantly. The From Folder combine approach is one of the most popular Power Query techniques covered in Aurora Training Advantage's Power Queries Made Easy on-demand webinar.
Power Query's core value proposition is automation: once you build a query that imports and cleans your data, every future refresh re-applies all transformations automatically with a single click—or even automatically on file open. To refresh a query manually, go to Data > Refresh All or right-click the query in the Queries & Connections pane and select Refresh. To refresh automatically when the workbook opens, right-click the query, select Properties, and check Refresh data when opening the file. For scheduled automation without opening Excel manually, Power Automate (part of Microsoft 365) can trigger Excel workbook refreshes on a schedule. Query steps are recorded in M language behind the scenes—advanced users can edit these steps directly for fine-tuned control. For teams that spend significant time each month importing, cleaning, and formatting recurring reports, Power Query transforms this work from a multi-hour manual task to a seconds-long refresh. The result is more consistent, error-free output and more time available for actual analysis rather than data wrangling—a benefit highlighted throughout Aurora Training Advantage's Power Queries Made Easy webinar with instructor Mike Thomas.