When the column name of my data source has changed, my dashboard will stop to work and to resolve it, I will have to update it manually. In this article, I will explain different ways to do it automatically and I will have to do it in Power BI Query. I have this data source:

excel	Power BI

If in excel, I change the name of the column A from “ticket” to “number”, I will get an error after the refresh:

Based on the configuration of my data source, I may be able to use option 1, if not, option 2.

Option 1: without coding

On the right side, in “applied steps”, I will delete the 2 last steps:

If the result doesn’t look like that, go to option 2:

Click on “home -> remove rows -> remove top rows” then put 1 because I want to delete only the first row:

Double click on the header to change the name:

So in the excel, I can put whatever I want, in Power BI, it will always be “incident”. The negative part for this option is that when I add a new column in excel, in Power BI, I will have to change the name manually if not, it will appear as “column 3”.

Option 2: with coding

I will have to modify the code by implementing: Table.ColumnNames(xxx){0}

NOTE:

• Change xxx by the previous step name
• 0 means column A so 1 = column B, etc.

Click on “home -> advanced editor”:

Change the green part by the code above:

NOTE: do that for every column that the name can be changed

So in the excel, the name that I will put, it will be reflected to Power BI and I don’t have the negative part of the unique name.

If I want to have an unique name, meaning that putting whatever I want in excel, in Power BI, it will always be “incident” for instance

Click on “home -> use first row as headers -> use headers as first row”:

Click on “home -> remove rows -> remove top rows” then put 1 because I want to delete only the first row:

Double click on the header to change the name:

Click on “home -> advanced editor”:

Change the green part by the code above:

NOTE: do that for every column that the name can be changed

The negative part for this unique name is that when I add a new column in excel, in Power BI, I will have to change the name manually if not, it will appear as “column 3”.