You will need a version of Power BI Desktop installed – the latest, if possible. All code examples have been tested using Power BI Desktop (March 2021 version). They will also work with future version releases too. The Power BI Gateway version used is February 2021 (3000.72.6). Also, future releases work the same way for the features explored in this book (Note: the user interface may differ depending on the version you use or due to future updates).

The majority of the tasks will need you to install Power BI Desktop, which is a free tool, whereas some of them will require you to have a Power BI Pro license to access the Power BI service on the web. In some recipes, you will need to have a Power BI Premium capacity to access some advanced features, such as Power BI Dataflows. The licenses needed for each chapter are the following:

• Chapter 1, Getting Started with Power Query, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 2, Connecting to Fetch Data, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 3, Data Exploration in Power Query, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 4, Reshaping Your Data, requires a Power BI Desktop free license, Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium.
• Chapter 5, Combining Queries for Efficiency, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 6, Optimizing Power Query Performance, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 7, Leveraging the M Language, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.
• Chapter 8, Adding Value to Your Data, requires a Power BI Desktop free license, Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium.
• Chapter 9, Performance Tuning with Power BI Dataflows, requires a Power BI Desktop free license, Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium.
• Chapter 10, Implementing Query Diagnostics, requires a Power BI Desktop free license.

This book will help both users who already have some experience with Power Query to discover features they were not aware of and beginner users to approach this tool with concrete examples, leveraging the power of learning by doing. After reading this book, you will have the skills to understand Power Query and keep an eye on https://powerquery.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ and https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ to enhance the knowledge you have acquired.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.