Adding a character to certain values in a column

[theu1996]

Hi,

I have a list of machines and plants and in the Excel source, my machine column was saved as a number instead of text and a number of machines lost the 0 in front of their name. Is there a way to add this back to the machine names, either in a new column or the existing one? Or would a find and replace be the best option?

Below is an example of the data, but the list of machines that need to be fixed is much larger:

Plant	Machine
17	211
17	306
17	0205A
21	0369B
65	ASSEMBLY1
70	306

*211 and 306 should be 0211 and 0306, but only if its plant 17

Thanks!

[v-easonf-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi , @theu1996 

As mention by  @UAV-Test-Pilot  ,If the data is lost in excel，I would suggest you to  format  you table column as text in excel before  you enter data.

Then check whether the data lost in data previews.

For how to fill in the missing data, please follow the steps below：

1.exacte the first character of  column"machine"

2.create custom column "missingdata" as below:

custome column formula as belowL

=if [Plant] = 17 and ([First Characters of Machine] <> "0")  then 0 else ""

3.merge column "misssing data" and  column"machine"

pbix attached

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Eason
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[UAV-Test-Pilot]

@theu1996  In your excel source, is the leading 0 there?

If yes, then you can change the formatting of the column to be text in PowerQuery, but be sure to do this step above any automatic formatting PowerQuery already applied to the source, as that is what is dropping the information.

If no, you can create a custom column to add the 0, when plant = '17' like this:

if ([Plant] = "17" and [Machine] = "211") then "0211" else if ([Plant] = "17" and [Machine] = "306") then "0306" else [Machine]

If this helped, I would appreciate a Kudos!
If this resolves the issue, please mark it as a Solution! 🙂

[Greg_Deckler]

@theu1996 - Use a SWITCH(TRUE()...) statement.