Data comes from all kinds of sources and Microsoft Power Query can you when you need to combine foreign data. It’s a bit easier than trying to do so in Microsoft Excel sometimes.

SEE: Explore 6 ways to save time using Flash Fill in Microsoft Excel. How to use Power Query to parse data in Microsoft Excel Power Query is available to Microsoft Excel 2010 users and later.

How to Perform Multiple Queries on an Excel Spreadsheet. Using the External Data Connection feature in Excel, you can acquire information from external sources, such as Access and SQL Server. The ...

Discover expert Power Query tips to reduce steps, streamline workflows, and optimize performance for cleaner, faster data ...

You can directly run SQL queries on a database from Excel. The traditional method was to create a Macro and write a long Visual Basic code by using ADO connection to get connected with the source.

This month’s column shows how to clean and join data using Excel’s Power Query.

Download Microsoft Power Query for Excel. The add-in allows for easy data discovery, data transformation and enrichment for Information Workers, BI professionals, etc.

Excel provides a handy feature called Enable Background Refresh in Power Query’s properties. This feature keeps updating imported external data continuously while you may work on other worksheets.