Basic Measures - Theory

Basic Measures - Theory

How and why you should create explicit measures in Power BI

When to use

When you want to begin writing basic DAX measures for Power BI

Instructions

Advantages of explicitly writing your own formulas in Power BI:

• You can provide a discoverable name for your measures (instead of “Sum of Sales”)
• You can provide default formatting for your measures (no dollar signs and no decimals)
• You can reuse the measure and update all visuals at once if you make a change
• Adds security by preventing users from drilling into records underlying the visual

To create a measure:

• Right-click the table name on the Fields window -> New Measure
• Write your measure in the following format:

Measure Name = FUNCTION(TableName[ColumnName])

Managing measures:

• Select the measure name in the Fields window
• Go to the Modeling tab to display the formula bar with the measure formula

Helpful functions:

• COUNT(Table[Column])
• COUNTA(Table[Column])
• DISTINCTCOUNT(Table[Column])
• COUNTROWS(Table)
• SUM(Table[Column])
• MAX(Table[Column])
• MIN(Table[Column])
• AVERAGE(Table[Column])
• Note that this is not an exhaustive list, there are many more

Hints & tips

• Avoid using the New Measure on the modeling tab, as it may not put it in the correct table
• There is a search function in the Fields window if you can’t find a measure