What big problem does Power Query solve? Creating interactive visuals Cleaning messy data Making PivotTable more user-friendly Allowing users to share data Confirm
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is Cleaning messy data.
Power Query primarily solves the problem of cleaning and transforming messy or raw data before it is used for analysis. Many data sources come in formats that are not immediately ready for reporting or visualization. They might contain errors, inconsistencies, duplicates, or be spread across multiple files and formats. Power Query provides a powerful, user-friendly interface to import, reshape, clean, and combine data from a wide variety of sources. This process is known as data preparation or ETL (Extract, Transform, Load).
Power Query automates repetitive data cleaning tasks, such as removing extra spaces, filtering rows, changing data types, splitting columns, merging tables, and filling in missing values. It records these steps in a repeatable way, so the same cleaning process can be applied automatically when new data arrives. This saves significant time and effort compared to manual data cleaning.
Although Power Query can help set the stage for creating interactive visuals or PivotTables, its main focus is on preparing the data so these tools can work effectively. It is not directly responsible for making PivotTables more user-friendly or for sharing data, but rather ensures the data is accurate, consistent, and well-structured.
In summary, Power Query addresses the critical challenge of messy, inconsistent, or unorganized data by providing a flexible and efficient way to clean and transform it. This enables better analysis, reporting, and decision-making based on reliable data.