My Power Query breaks when source files with new names are put into the source folder

Soproni

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Question from a rookie Power Query user. My query starts by opening three Excel source files in a folder, all having the same layout. Successful! But when the next month comes, I replace the old files in the source folder with new ones, still with the same layout, but now having new file names, since the month is in the name. The query breaks right on that first step, with an error message stating the files with the original names aren’t found. How do I generalize my query so that the new files are accepted and processed? I see this running smoothly in many example queries on the web, so I don’t understand why my query chokes on new source file names. Thanks!
 
Thank you!

Ken Puls has a blog post that details the steps to follow.
https://www.excelguru.ca/blog/2015/02/25/combine-multiple-excel-workbooks-in-power-query/

Does that help?


Thank you so much for kindly responding.

I'm a complete rookie, and went through the blog post carefully a number of times without success. I will organize a question to the blog writer; I think the problem may lie in the fact that he was writing in 2015, using what is now an outdated version of PQ, so some of my actions did not result in the outcomes he illustrated.

The main mystery to me is that I have seen many many example queries on the web in which new files with new names are thrown into the source folder and processed with no problem at all; this seems normal without the added work described in the blog post. As in the examples I have in mind, my files are all formatted the same way, but for the file names. I suspect my error is very fundemental and is something I do wrong in the initial sourcing step.

Thanks,
Soproni
 
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