Forum Discussion
Combining and sorting workbooks based on a single common column header.
If you consider such option that could be done with Power Query. All spreadsheets from the billing system could be added / removed from separate folder. Power Query in separate Excel analyses all existing in folder spreadsheets and generates the results.
Details it's better to discuss having sample files.
- Daniel1945Apr 17, 2024Copper Contributor
Good afternoon,
From what I can find, it does appear this should be completed with Power Query. I haven't found any instructions that show exactly the steps to take to combine these without the data from sheet 2 ending up below the data from sheet 1 on the resulting table. I've added 2 small test files in case that helps.Here's a screenshot of what I can get if I instruct Power Query to keep all columns from both sheets. It's closer to what I need, but still not matching the data up across the rows.
- SergeiBaklanApr 19, 2024Diamond Contributor
May I clarify what is the logic of working with files.
- At any moment do you have only one Customer Info file and one PaperLess file, or you work with multiple files added to the folder from time to time?
- If multiple files is information about the same account shall be taken on the latest date of the file, or they are combined?
- What exactly "variable number of columns" means, is that for both type of files or only one and which columns are always fixed by name and position?
- Daniel1945Apr 19, 2024Copper Contributor
Good morning,
Once I'm up and rolling, this particular project will have 4 files that will contain different data, but all of them will have the same Account Number column. This will be the only common column between the 4 files. We will only have one copy of each file in out folder at once. I am not able to upload the files in their entirety because they have personally identifiable information.
When I said variable numbers of columns, I should have clarified, each file will have a different number of columns. My goal is to learn the process so that I can modify it to meet the requirements for different projects which is why I only uploaded 2 files with minimal columns. If the solution is custom for each set of files, I may need to rethink my plans.