Download the latest Data Explorer update: Unpivot feature and search experience improvements

Hi there!

We’d like to let you know that there is an updated build for Data Explorer available. You should see “Auto Update” on your ribbon light up soon. Alternatively, you can go here to download.

In this build, we are introducing a built-in formula for unpivoting columns to rows. Over the past few weeks, many of you have expressed feedback indicating that the ability to unpivot data would be very useful for cleaning up and consuming data for everyday needs. We are happy to provide this as a simple, consistent and intuitive experience.

As an example, consider the following historical population data obtained from the London Datastore.

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While this format works well as a report showing population details by year and area, it is not particularly well suited for consumption in analytic/BI scenarios  – especially if you were thinking about aggregating or summarizing the data along different dimensions.

Data Explorer now provides the ability to select the columns you would like to unpivot, and accomplish the task in a single click. Here’s the Unpivot menu option you can apply over a selection of columns:

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The result of unpivoting yields the following table:

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And a few more Data Explorer transformations gives you a nice cleaned up table that can be used for summarizing, or for consumption in PowerPivot or Power View.

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This update of Data Explorer also includes a better experience for browsing and using search results. You no longer have to click on the tiny “Use” link in the search results pane – instead you can click on the search result itself. This was a point of confusion for many users, and we hope this improves the general experience.

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As always, there are dozens of bug fixes in the update as well.

We hope you enjoy this latest build. Let us know what you think!

Data Explorer Team