Keyword Search in Multiple Columns with Power Query

If you wanted to do a search for keywords in the text of a column or multiple columns you could use the find all feature in Excel. But if this was something where you wanted to bring back the records for those columns that had the keyword and report it back to a stakeholder, you'd want something more complete. Enter Power Query; it can provide the mechanism for you to do keyword search in multiple columns and systematically bring back those rows or records and also take into account the case (i.e., case sensitive words) of the keywords.

Excel Lookup to Return the Last Value

Usually when you're doing lookups in Excel, it brings back the first value that matches. But what if you want the last value and did not want to sort the table to do that? You can actually perform this type of lookup quite easily in Office 365 version of Excel with the XLOOKUP function. But what if you don't have O365? Well you're not stuck, cause you can combine some functions (INDEX, LARGE, IF and ROW) to do the same thing. I'll show examples of both and offer a bonus on how to create a drop down list near the end.

Use the Power Query Data Type Customization

In the Microsoft Office subscription or Microsoft 365 version of Excel there's data types that let you get a lot more information from just one value in a cell. There is a stock data type that lets you view the latest information of that public company like the stock price or shares outstanding; and that is just based on the name of the company in one cell. Now you can actually create you own custom data type courtesy of Power Query. Think of it as a small table or list that you can expand from just one cell in your worksheet. You can have any time of structured table of related information and it all gets encapsulations in one column of multiple row cells. See the video to learn how this can be done.

Create a Clickable Image Map in SharePoint

https://youtu.be/7NwSdVNBYUA

In SharePoint classic pages, you were able to have a clickable image map similar to an ordinary web page. However with SharePoint modern pages, Microsoft seemed to have taken that ability away. There is actually a workaround for this using another popular Microsoft product - PowerPoint. You can create the hotspots with multiple links for each part of an image, upload this using the file viewer web part and bam(!) you have a pseudo image map along with the ability to mouseover and see the link without writing html.

Calculate a Binomial Distribution Probability in Excel

A binomial distribution is basically a type of distribution that has only two possible outcomes: Success or Failure. An example would be toss of a typical coin...you either get a heads or tails. If you choose heads , that would be your success and tail would be the failure. Now if we wanted to calculated the probability of success based on X number of tosses, there is actually a formula to calculate that probability. Excel makes it really easy, but I'll show four different ways to get this answer.

Use the LET Function in Excel

If you familiar with programming or VBA you'll love the LET function. It basically lets you define a name with a cell, assign it a value and perform calculations with that name. It might be overkill with basic functions, but when you've got more complicated formula that call on the same range or set data ranges, the LET functions makes it more efficient to execute and easier to read and troubleshoot. It's only available on Microsoft 365 version, so if you got that version check out this video to get an introduction to the LET function.

Create Interactive Power Query Report Start & End Date

Power Query can make interactive reports with a start date and end date with a simple function query. This is not as hard as it sounds even though it involves getting into the M code a bit. The nice thing about this method is that you can then hide the data source from a user and give some basic instruction on how to use this to generate a basic report. Though it covers date selection, this method can be applied to other type of user input like text selections.