How To Easily Merge Tables With Power Query: Vlookup Alternative: Excel learning resource
How To Easily Merge Tables With Power Query: Vlookup Alternative
Focused treatment of merge queries as a practical VLOOKUP replacement. Watch this video from Excel Campus - Jon and use it to practice Merge and append queries.
How To Easily Merge Tables With Power Query: Vlookup Alternative
Excel Campus - Jon
Open on YouTube (opens in a new tab)Why this resource is useful
Focused treatment of merge queries as a practical VLOOKUP replacement.
What to practice while watching
- Merge and append queries
Recommended learning path
Start by watching the lesson once without pausing, then reopen Excel and rebuild the example with your own small dataset. Save one clean practice workbook before moving to the next topic.
Source details
- Channel: Excel Campus - Jon
- Format: video
- Level: Intermediate
- Topic: Power Query
Go deeper with this skill
Create a repeatable cleanup and refresh process instead of doing the same manual edits every month. For this article, the goal is to practice: Focused treatment of merge queries as a practical VLOOKUP replacement. Watch this video from Excel Campus - Jon and use it to practice Merge and append queries.
Practice workbook setup
Use a raw export with extra columns, inconsistent text, blanks, or repeated monthly files.
Practice workflow
- Import the data into Power Query and rename every meaningful step.
- Remove columns only after confirming they are not needed downstream.
- Set data types deliberately for dates, numbers, IDs, and text.
- Load the cleaned result to a table and refresh it after changing the source.
Quality checks
- Applied steps are named clearly enough to review later.
- Data types are correct before loading the result.
- Refresh works without manual cleanup in the worksheet.
Common mistakes
- Editing the loaded table instead of the query steps.
- Removing columns before checking whether reports depend on them.
- Ignoring errors caused by new values or changed source headers.
Next actions
- Create a small refresh checklist and keep it beside the report.
- Try combining two files or appending a new month to test repeatability.
Formula focus: even if this workflow is not formula-heavy, add one check cell that confirms the final output still matches the source data.
