How This Single
Button
Can Change Your Life

Make Your Excel Life Easier with Power Query

Inside your Microsoft Excel window sits a magic button.

Those who have pressed this button are familiar with the relief it brings.

If you’ve never clicked this button, keep reading, because this will be the most important message of your day.

This magic button? It’s called the “Refresh” button, and it looks like this:

You’re probably asking…

“Okay Leila, you’re making a big deal about this button. What makes it so special?"

Because, my dear, just one click of this button can replace hours and hours of manual labor.

It can save you from pulling your hair out as you clean data. And it allows you to ship reports to your boss and colleagues faster – winning you praise and promotions.

We’ll revisit our magic button shortly. First, let’s visit a typical day in the life of an Excel user.

But let’s say you’re able to get the data into Excel.

Off to the races?

Hardly!

It’s one thing to have data in Excel, it’s another to have clean data in Excel.

Oh, how we wish all data could be delivered to us on a silver platter. We’d give our colleague a warm, “Thank you!” and maybe even a hug.

Instead, we groan…

“You put the data in a PDF? Really?!”

Or…

“Why the heck would you put the customer ID and the customer’s name in the same freaking column!?”

Or…

“Why does your SAP export have leading spaces?"

But you push your frustration down deep, check how many days are left til’ Friday, and soldier on…

Your Excel life doesn’t need to be this way!

If you regularly import data into Excel, please, let me make your life easier.

I have two words for you: Power Query.

Often overlooked because Microsoft tucked it away inside the “Data” tab back in 2016, Excel users worldwide are finally waking up to the gift that is Power Query.

Because you’re not alone in your struggles to add and clean data in Excel. Not by a long shot.

Today, these students and thousands more are saving hours each day thanks to Power Query.

I swear, using Power Query must be the same feeling people had 100 years ago when they drove a car for the first time. It lets you go fast.

In that spirit, it’s time for you to trade in your horse & buggy and enter the Excel fast lane.

Data to Dashboard in 60 Seconds

Need to send a dashboard to your boss or colleague?

Ah, we finally return to that magic refresh button. Because do you want to know the best part of Power Query?

• It’s not that it can connect to almost any data source, even data sitting on a webpage.
  
• It’s not Power Query’s ability to clean data with a flick of its wrist.
  
• It’s not how Power Query eliminates complex formulas, liberating you from having to become Severus Snape, Excel potions master.

Yes, those are all wonderful benefits provided by Power Query. But its best feature?

It’s this: Power Query remembers.

Yes, you can record the steps you take to import and clean your data. That way, when a new batch of data arrives, all you need to do is click “Refresh.”

Instantly, your data is imported, cleaned, and beautifully presented.

No more copy & paste. No more helper columns. No more mixing together complex formulas.

You simply click that magic button. That’s how you go from data to dashboard in 60 seconds.

This has saved me quite some time which I used to spend doing things manually.

I have prepared some other reports by combining data from multiple files in a folder. Any time a new file was added to the folder, I would see the latest numbers in my report.

I helped a colleague with a CAPEX report using PQ, and she told me that I saved her one whole day of work.

In the words of José Carlos (a student of ours) - "Can we call that magic :)?"

I Avoided Power Query For a Long Time

If you’re new around here, I’m Leila Gharani, founder of XelPlus.

I avoided Power Query for a long time. I had watched multiple videos and I thought,

“This is a Power Tool. I don’t work with millions of rows of data. I don’t need this.”

But then in 2018, the Microsoft Team presented some updates they’d implemented in Power Query. And I realized, I had watched the wrong videos. There was an easy side to Power Query and an advanced side. I’d jumped right in with advanced techniques. No wonder I tried to avoid it.

You see, as a Microsoft MVP, I get invited to Redmond, Washington each year for the Global MVP Summit. In between the yearly visits, we have monthly sessions where the Microsoft Excel team gives us updates on the latest features (yes, it’s pretty cool).

It was on one of these calls where I saw the easy side of Power Query in action for the first time. My initial reaction was, “Wow! That is incredible.”

I also realized my mistake. You see, at first, the name Power Query fooled me.

Judging by the name, I thought it was a tool for power users. When actually, it’s a power tool – for everyone.

Power Query is not reserved for Excel masters. Rather, it’s a powerful tool that can benefit even the Excel beginner. At the end of the day, Power Query is nothing more than a series of clicks.

After that meeting with the Microsoft team, I knew I must teach Power Query to our XelPlus audience. That’s when I started working on our online course.

Today, I’m excited to invite you to become a student in that course. It’s now helped thousands of Excel users shave hours off their workday tasks, and it can help you too.

Enroll in our Power Query course today and you’ll:

• Get up and running with Power Query in just an hour or two
• Get 18 hours of video tutorials, covering everything you’ll need to know about Power Query (Beginner all the way to pro)
• Challenge yourself by downloading our Excel challenge files
• Test your knowledge with quizzes at the end of every section
• Ask questions and get answers from our helpful teaching assistants

You can view the detailed curriculum below.

Yes, it’s a BIG course. Which means it has everything you need for Power Query.

But it might also be intimidating, too. Don’t worry. You don’t need to go through every single lesson before seeing benefits. In fact, go through just 5% of the course and you’ll save hours of time in Excel.

Plus whatever you learn in this course you can apply 1-to-1 to Power BI as well.

In addition to the main course, we also have a few excellent bonuses. I want you to have as few “Excel headaches” as possible, and these bonuses are like an Excel aspirin.

Bonus 2: Power Query
Solutions Book

Excel is a problem-solving tool. Well, the way you solve problems is with good solutions, right? That’s what this second bonus gives you.

It contains 107 pages of common Excel problems – and good Power Query solutions.

You’ll find solutions to problems like:

• Combining data from multiple workbooks and sheets
• Creating buckets for your data
• Finding mismatches in your data
• Searching and replacing bulk values
• Unpivoting data with multiple headers

And more.

Caption: Sample from the Solutions guide bonus

New! Earn CPD credits

I’m excited to announce this Power Query course is now CPD certified. The Continuing Professional Development is a top global accreditation, trusted by companies and industries worldwide.

When you complete this course, you’ll get a special certificate with the official CPD stamp. You will earn 18 CPD hours with the course.

If CPD credits can help in your career, this isn’t a course to skip.

At this point, you might be asking, “Do I have the time to go through this course?”

First, here’s the question you should really be asking yourself: “Do I have the time not to?”

Because if you’re tight on time, Power Query is your answer. Yes, you need to invest the time up front to learn it. But the ROI will show up in less than a month. In many cases, the first week.

But I get it – online courses take time. That’s why we’re rolling out this new time-savings feature to all our courses, including this one.

We call it: The Topic Transporter.

Beam Me Up, Scotty!
Jump into the Topic You Need – Fast

As a Star Trek fan, I was always in awe of the transporter technology. It blew my mind how Captain Kirk could spot a nearby planet, then instantly transport his team to that exact location.

I want your experience inside our course to be just as instantaneous.

Thanks to a new tool we created here in our XelPlus “laboratory,” now, when you want to find a topic, you can do so instantly.

We’ve gone through every second of every lesson and pulled out the key words & topics. Then, we created an interactive agenda which allows you to quickly locate exactly what you’re looking for.

Once you find your topic, it’s simply a matter of saying “Beam me up!” (not actually required). Click the link and you’ll instantly be transported to the correct lesson and timestamp.

No more wasting hours searching. Find what you need, then get back to work.

Your Next Steps

Click the button below to get started. Excel Power Query will give your career an incredible boost.

The investment for this course is only $179 (ex. VAT). What would it be worth to you to have this time-saving Excel skill in your skillset?

You'll get:

• Access to our entire 23-module course (18+ hours of video tutorials)
• Lifetime access, so you’re never in a rush to complete a lesson
• The “Beam Me Up Scotty” topic transporter to quickly find what you need
• 200+ Practice Workbooks (both START and SOLUTION files)
• A comment section to get your questions answered by our staff (how awesome is that?)
• Credits for CPD
• English Captions so you can easily follow along each video
• Quizzes to track how well you understand the concepts
• Challenges to acquire your Power Query skills fast
• Quick Reference Guide to review what you learnt
• Solution Book to quickly find answers to your data analysis challenges
• A bonus Pro Section covering topics only a few Power Query Pros know

You can be watching the first lesson in less than five minutes.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

When does the course start and finish?

You’ll take this course in your own time. It is a completely self-paced online course – so you decide when you start and when you finish.

How long do I have access to the course?

How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.

What if I am unhappy with the course?

We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund.

What if I have questions about the lessons? Can I get those answered?

Yes! Most online courses leave you on your own, but not here at XelPlus.

We have a team of helpful teaching assistants (TA’s) ready to answer your questions about each lesson. Below each lesson, you’ll find a comment section where you can ask a question about the topic. Our TA’s will chime in and do their best to help you.

What’s required for the course?

This course is designed for Excel on Windows. Power Query is currently NOT fully available in native Mac.

You’ll need Microsoft Excel 2019 or Microsoft 365. General functionality is also available in Excel 2016, but some Power Query features require newer versions.

Any other questions?

Send us an email to [email protected] and a member of my team will get back to you ASAP.