ImportYeti

PowerQuery syntax

PowerQuery provides advanced search across US import/export Bills of Lading and Mexico import/export customs declarations. Search shipments, companies, suppliers, brokers, and customs records using flexible filters to discover trade relationships, shipment activity, and import/export trends.

How to research US imports

1) I want to find all shipments imported by Walmart
→ Search US Import Companies

2) Explore import activity — related Bills of Lading, overseas suppliers, and shipment history.

How to research US exports

1) I want to research a US exporter
→ Search US Export Companies

2) Explore export activity — export Bills of Lading, shipment history, and trading partners.

Most text fields support the operators below — check each parameter description for “booleans”, “wildcards”, or “ranges”.

Boolean operators

By default, spaces mean OR. A query like capital of Hungary matches documents containing any of those terms.

  • AND — both terms required: capital AND Hungary
  • NOT — exclude a term: capital AND NOT Hungary

Grouping

Use parentheses when combining operators:

Shell
(quick OR brown) AND fox
Always parenthesise when you combine operators. Precedence is not what you would guess, so group every clause explicitly rather than relying on it.
Combining operators
((quick AND fox) OR (brown AND fox) OR fox) AND NOT news

Exact phrases

Wrap phrases in double quotes:

Shell
"capital of Hungary"

Wildcards

  • ? — one character
  • * — zero or more characters
Shell
qu?ck bro*

Limits: at most one * and three ? per field — exceeding either returns 400 with “must contain no more than 1 (*) wildcard and no more than 3 (?) wildcards”. See core concepts.

Ranges (numeric fields)

Inclusive ranges use square brackets; exclusive use curly braces. Open ends use *. Put the range syntax in the field's query parameter value.

Shell
# 1 to 5
company_total_shipments=[1 TO 5]

# 10 or more
company_total_shipments=[10 TO *]

# up to 500
supplier_total_shipments=[* TO 500]

Datasets & common routes

Aggregation routes (companies, suppliers, brokers) share the same filter style and return ranked lists instead of raw documents.

Dates & pagination

Use mm/dd/yyyy. Defaults start at 01/01/2021 and end on the last day of the previous month. Paginate with page_size, offset, or page.

Walk through a real search in Search shipments with PowerQuery.