Concatenate [(table)] LOAD ...

Concatenate (append tables) in Power BI

Concatenate appends rows to an existing table. Qlik also does this automatically when field sets match. Power Query's Append queries (Table.Combine) matches columns by name and fills missing ones with null.

Direct equivalent Power Query

Short answer: Use Home > Append queries, or Table.Combine({Sales2025, Sales2026}). For a folder of files, use Combine files.

What it does in Qlik

Concatenate (Facts) LOAD ... adds rows to Facts, even when the fields differ (missing fields are null). If two loads produce exactly the same field names, Qlik concatenates them automatically, unless NoConcatenate is used.

Qlik example

Qlik script
Facts: LOAD OrderID, Amount, 'Actual' AS Type FROM [lib://Data/actuals.qvd] (qvd);
Concatenate (Facts)
LOAD BudgetLine AS OrderID, Budget AS Amount, 'Budget' AS Type FROM [lib://Data/budget.qvd] (qvd);

Power BI equivalent

Power Query

Power Query M
let
    A = Table.AddColumn(Actuals, "Type", each "Actual", type text),
    B = Table.AddColumn(Table.RenameColumns(Budget, {{"BudgetLine", "OrderID"}, {"Budget", "Amount"}}), "Type", each "Budget", type text),
    Facts = Table.Combine({A, B})
in
    Facts

Gotchas and behaviour differences

  • Column names must match exactly, including case. Otherwise you get two half-empty columns.
  • If the same column has different types in the inputs, the combined column can lose its type. Set types after combining.
  • Actuals and budget at different grains are often better as two fact tables sharing dimensions than one appended table.

Official documentation

Related pages

Spotted an error or a better pattern? QlikToDax is maintained by a working BI consultant; corrections are welcome via the About page. Last reviewed 2026-10-25.