Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

6. Power Query Essentials

6.6 Reference vs Duplicate

Right-click a query in the Queries pane:

  • Duplicate – copies all the steps into a new independent query.
  • Reference – creates a new query whose source is the output of the original query. Changes to the original flow into the reference.

Use Reference to create, for example, a DarkStore dimension from a big flat orders file: reference the file query, keep the store columns, remove duplicates.

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

Friends, many students use Duplicate when they meant Reference, and then fix the same cleaning bug in two queries. Use Reference when a query should build on another query's cleaned result. Use Duplicate only when you want a fully independent copy. Keep this in mind!