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Make "combine binaries" independent from existence of a particular file

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Marcel Beugelsdijk's profile image

Marcel Beugelsdijk on 03 Jan 2017 23:12:42

Since the November 2016 upgrade of Power BI Desktop, the "combine binaries" functionality is strongly improved.
However, I have 1 suggestion for improvement already.
The "combine binaries" functionality creates some objects, including a query "Sample Binary".
This query returns the first file from the (selected) files in the folder.
Unfortunately, the name and path of this file are hardcoded, e.g. from the advanced editor:
#"C:\Users\Marcel\OneDrive - Bemint\Office 365\Power Query\DateTimeTables\_(UTC+0000) Casablanca xlsx" = Source{[#"Folder Path"="C:\Users\Marcel\OneDrive - Bemint\Office 365\Power Query\DateTimeTables\",Name="(UTC+0000) Casablanca.xlsx"]}[Content]

Consequently, when that file would be removed from the folder, you would get errors when refreshing this query.

So my suggestion would be to adjust that line of code - that gets created from the "combine binaries" functionality - to, for instance:
SampleBinary = Source{0}[Content]

Where "Source" is the name of the previous step.

This way the dependency on the existence of a particular file will be removed.
And there will be a mucher better step name as well.

Administrator on 03 May 2017 00:39:35

This feature is now available in the Power BI Desktop May update - Read the official announcement for more details: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-may-feature-summary/

Comments (1)
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0074d8fc eba5-4dcc-96de-4d3c3109aff7 on 05 Jul 2020 22:47:34

RE: Make "combine binaries" independent from existence of a particular file

Great work :)