Column Quality, Column Distribution & Column Profile
Monday, May 17th, 2021
Here’ s a table showing what does what. To summarize, Column Profile does everything but only on one column. Column distribution shows you the distribution (obviously) and number distinct and unique. Column quality shows valid, error, and empty.
Column Quality | Column Distirubiton | Column Profile | |
Multiple columns at once | Yes | Yes | No |
Valid | Yes | No | No |
Error | Yes | No | Yes |
Empty | Yes | No | Yes |
Distinct | No | Yes | Yes |
Unique | No | Yes | Yes |
Distribution | No | Yes | Yes |
Max | No | No | Yes |
Min | No | No | Yes |
Average, Standard Deviation, etc (numeric only) |
No | No | Yes |
Column Quality
Open data in the Power Query editor, click the view tab, and select column quality. Three values are shown:
- % Valid
- % Error
- % Empty

Column Distribution
Select column distribution, and we get:
- Number distinct
- Number Unique

Column Profile
Select column profile and we get:
- count
- error
- empty
- distinct
- unqiue
- empty string
- min
- max

For numeric data, you get additional summary:
