Set up Excel and the practice files

Five minutes of setup here saves an hour of confusion later. This course needs Excel 2016 or later, or Microsoft 365, for Windows, plus one set of practice files: fictional expense data for a company across 2025, split into 12 monthly files with 1,056 transactions in total. In this lesson you check your Excel version, extract the practice files into one folder, then open the file you’ll work in.

123456 Zoom

Click a number on the picture or in this list to highlight that area.

1. 1Address bar The parent folder’s path. Explorer writes it as This PC › Data (D:) › Excel Dashboard, which means D:\Excel Dashboard (click the address box to see it written that way). Every practice file must stay under this folder.
2. 2Data Expense 2025 folder Holds 12 monthly transaction files, from Expense 2025-01 Januari.xlsx to Expense 2025-12 Desember.xlsx (see the window in front). Power Query reads this folder in one go.
3. 3Finished example Dashboard Expense - CONTOH JADI.xlsx holds the finished dashboard. Open it to see where you’re heading, but don’t work in this file.
4. 4Practice file (KOSONGAN) Latihan Dashboard Expense - KOSONGAN.xlsx is the file you work in from Module 1 to Module 8. It’s empty on purpose.
5. 5Logo.png The company logo for the dashboard header, used in Module 7.
6. 6Master Data.xlsx The lookup tables: the Departemen, Kategori and Budget sheets. Used in Module 4.

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Check your Excel version: click File → Account and look at the Product Information section (the About Excel button shows the version number). Suitable: Microsoft 365 or Excel 2016, 2019, 2021 or 2024 for Windows. Quick check: open the Data tab; if there’s a Get Data button on the far left, Power Query is ready.

   Tip: In the first release of Excel 2016 that button was called New Query (Data → New Query → From File → From Folder). Same contents, different name. Some older editions of Excel 2016 also lacked Power Pivot; if you can use Microsoft 365, that’s the safest choice.

   Watch out: Excel for Mac, Excel in the browser (Excel for the web) and Excel on a phone can’t be used for this course: their Power Query is limited and there’s no Power Pivot window. Use a Windows PC or laptop; a work or campus computer is fine.

2. 2

   Step 2: Download excel-dashboard-latihan.zip from the practice file card above. Open your Downloads folder, right-click the zip file → Extract All…, change the path in the Files will be extracted to this folder box to D:\, then click Extract. You get the folder D:\Excel Dashboard.

   Tip: No D: drive on your laptop? Extract to your Documents folder instead, so you get Documents\Excel Dashboard. Any location works, as long as it stays put and is easy to find.

   Watch out: Don’t open the Excel files straight from inside the zip (double-clicking the zip file, then a file inside it). Windows opens a temporary copy: your work can get lost, and Power Query will later read the wrong folder.

3. 3

   Step 3: Open the Excel Dashboard folder and compare it with the picture: one folder and four files (numbers 2 to 6). The dates in the Date modified column may differ. Double-click the Data Expense 2025 folder (number 2): it must hold 12 files, from Expense 2025-01 Januari.xlsx to Expense 2025-12 Desember.xlsx. Go back to the parent folder with the left arrow button (Back) at the top left.

   Tip: File names on your screen show without .xlsx? That’s normal, because Windows hides file extensions. To show them: View → Show → File name extensions.

   Watch out: Rule number one: every file lives in one and the same parent folder, and that folder must not be moved or renamed mid-course. Power Query stores the folder path inside your file, so if the folder moves, the connection breaks. (How to fix it is in Module 8.)

4. 4

   Step 4: Double-click Latihan Dashboard Expense - KOSONGAN.xlsx (number 4) to open it in Excel. If a yellow PROTECTED VIEW bar appears, click Enable Editing. Skim the Mulai Di Sini sheet (its "Bab" list refers to the chapters of the ebook; in this course just follow the modules in order), then save with Ctrl + S. You do every exercise in this course in this file.

   Tip: The fastest way to learn: Excel on the left half of the screen, the course on the right half. Click the Excel window and press Windows + ←, then click your browser and press Windows + →. Excel is learned by hand, not by heart.

   Watch out: Keep the 12 expense files closed. If one of them is open, Excel creates a temporary file starting with ~$ in that folder, and Power Query reads it too in Module 2.