In Query Editor, how to get details of a step?

Question

I've done some basic things in a query editor via the user interface. For instance, I renamed a column. Now I'm going back to review, but I'm having a hard time figuring out where the details of the step are.

In Applied Steps, on the "Renamed Column", I can right click and go to properties, but it does not list the old and new column name. There is no gear/setting icon to the right. How do I figure out what the new and old column names are?

For the "remove top rows" step, I can click on the gear icon to the right, and get a box with the number of rows, and edit it. How can I do the same with other steps such as renaming columns?

Answer 1

Not all commands have a gear icon in the Applied Steps panel. The Advanced editor can be quite overwhelming at first.

To ease into things, go to the View ribbon and ensure that "Formula Bar" is ticked, like in the screenshot below. Now you can select a step in the Applied Steps panel and its formula shows in the formula bar, very much like in Excel. You can edit the formula and change parameters as you see fit.

You can expand the formula bar to show a few more rows, with the icon at the right of the formula bar.

Answer 2

The code behind the Query Editor is Power Query. Microsoft Power BI ports many useful / frequently-used functions to the user interface for easier / better user experience (but not all functions, obviously).

Therefore, if you want to find the details of a step, you can always go to the Advanced Editor and check out the original Power Query code to find the corresponding line of code. You can also modify the code directly if you understand Power Query.

Below is a screenshot of the Advanced Editor, where the Table.RenameColumns function in Power Query is highlighted, which is the same as Rename Column in Power BI: