I'm trying to use a previous calculated Measure in a Calculated Column in PBI, but i get the error "expressions that yield variant data-type cannot be used to define calculated columns", how can i fix this? this is my code
Critical_Detrended = 1*(1+[Trend])
Thanks
Calculated columns are static. They are calculated once, when the data is loaded. Their values cannot change. Thus, you can't use something dynamic, like measures, because measures are responsive, they are re-computed when the user selects something, changes the value of a slicer, etc.
The solution in your case is to change your calculated column to be a measure too.
You could take a look for example at Calculated columns and measures in DAX article.
While calculated columns are not responsive to any slicers or filters set on your report, you absolutely can use measures in a calculated column definition so long as you understand how the row context to filter context transition works and don't expect the calculated column to be dynamically responsive.
That said, the error you are getting sounds like [Trend] may output different data types in different situations but a column can only be a single data type. A non-obvious case where this sort of thing happens is when a measure sometimes outputs an integer and other times outputs a decimal type. In a case like that, you can force it to return a decimal type by multiplying by 1.0 or adding 0.0 or similar manner of type coercion. In your case, changing one of the 1 to 1.0 might do the trick if that's indeed the problem.
Related
For a table (having 2 rows and 3 columns namely City1,Price1 & Units1) in power bi, I created a new column (named 'salesColumn') and a new measure (named 'salesMeasure) with the below DAX queries
salesColumn = SUMX('Table', 'Table'[Price1] * 'Table'[Units1])
salesMeasure = SUMX('Table', 'Table'[Price1] * 'Table'[Units1])
This resulted in the following visual:
As seen above, formula for both the column & measure are same but still they give different results. While salesColumn gives 6572 (12*175 + 18*229) in both rows, salesMeasure gives the row wise product. Can anyone please let me know why the behaviour is different in the two cases while we are using the same formula ? SUMX is a function to which we are passing the same arguments. If we are passing same arguments to a function, the function should behave in the same manner, but it is not so. Is there any hidden argument being passed to SUMX ? Can anyone please explain what is happening here & possibly paste some relevant links to understand this better ?
This Two calculation should give you different output, the reason is that the SaleColumn are calculated only once at refresh time (The DAX expression defined for a calculated column operates in the context of the current row across that table.) --> you calculate a value for all rows (look at the summary from salesMeasure), while SaleMeasure is dynamic.
Even if they look similar, there is a big difference between
calculated columns and measures. The value of a calculated column is
computed during data refresh and uses the current row as a context; it
does not depend on user interaction in the report. A measure operates
on aggregations of data defined by the current context, which depends
on the filter applied in the report – such as slicer, rows, and
columns selection in a pivot table, or axes and filters applied to a
chart.
https://www.sqlbi.com/articles/calculated-columns-and-measures-in-dax/
I want to calculate % of two columns which are already in %.
I want to calculate formula like
Target achieved= ACTUAL/TARGET
But here is ACTUAL is already a measure/calculated metrics so I'm not able to divide these two columns.
Any help would be appreciated..
Make sure both target and actual are actually numbers and not strings. You can do it in transform data (aka Power Query) part, before data is loaded into the report.
After that you should be able to create the measure you want, e.g. something like that:
UPDATE : What happens if Actual is not a column, but a measure?
If Actual measure is based on the columns in the same table as target you shouldn't have a problem. You cannot combine measure and column in the same formula. Measure is an aggregated field and needs to be grouped by another field (if you are familiar with SQL,think of SUM and GROUP BY). Coming back to your problem, you need to create measure out of "Target" column as well (notice I have in the formula SUM('Table'[Plan]) which makes it a measure). Than you can use both of them in the formula, but of course you need to "group" them by something(e.g. date) otherwise it will just show you a total.
I have created a parameter which has values 1-20.
Now I want to use this in a calculated column , wherein the calculations is
if(Parameter[Parameter Value]>'GPH Activity'[Idle Time 2],1,0)
Here Idle time is a number field.
This however doesn't seem to work. What I am doing wrong?
You can't use parameters in Calculated Columns, only in Measures.
Calculated Columns are calculated when the data model is refreshed, they're not dynamically recalculated as the report is consumed.
Decide how you wish to aggregate this calculation, and write an appropriate measure instead. You may wish to use an Iterator function, such as COUNTX or SUMX.
I'm trying to count days between a date from the column 'completionDate' and today
The table name is 'Incidents (2)'
I have a simuler table called 'incidents' here it's working.
The code:
DaysClosed = DATEDIFF('Incidents (2)'[completionDate].[Dag];TODAY();DAY)
The error i get:
'A single value for variaton 'Dag' for column 'completionDate' in table 'Incidents (2)' cannot be determined. This can happen when a measure formula refers to a column that contains many values without specifying an aggregation such as min, max, count, or sum to get a single result.'
The error you get strongly depends on how you are evaluating your formula, that's why it might work on another table but not on this one. As #JBfreefolks pointed out correctly you are specifying a column where a scalar value is expected. That can work depending on the context you are evaluating your formula over (assuming it is a measure).
For instance, imagine a data-set with 100 rows equally divided into four categories A,B,C,D. When you create a table visual with a row for each category, each row will have 25 underlying records that will be used in any calculation added to this row (either a measure or an aggregate of any value). This means that when using a formula like datediff with a column reference, it will get 25 values for it's second argument where it expects one.
There are several ways to solve the problem depending on your desired result.
Use a measure like MAX like #JBfreefolks suggested to make sure that a single value is selected from multiple values. The measure will still be calculated over a group of records but will summarize it by taking the maximum date.
Make sure the visual you are using has something like an ID in there so it doesn't group, it displays row context. Any measure added to this visual will evaluate in row context as well.
Use a calculated column instead. They are always evaluated in row context first and their values can be aggregated in a visual later on. When using TODAY() , you probably need to refresh your report at least every day to keep the column up to date.
A more complicated way is to use an iterator like SUMX() or AVERAGEX() to force row context evaluation inside of a measure.
Good to see you solved it already, still posting as it might be helpful to others.
'Incidents (2)'[completionDate].[Dag] referencing a colomn. It is in your computation returning a table (multiple date in the evaluation context) instade of a scalar needed in DATEDIFF calculation.
You need to leverage to be sure that 'Incidents (2)'[completionDate].[Dag] is rturning a scalar value. To do that you can leverage rowcontext and then also formula like Max.
I'm new to the DAX world and I just faced a conceptual misunderstanding.
While I was trying to debug a measure, I found a unexpected (for me) behaviour with the ALL function. I wrote a simple measure COUNTROWS(ALL(Table)) but to my surprise, when I sliced the data by a column, the same number did not appear in each cell in the values field, ignoring the filter context in the way I was expecting:
So, what am I missing?
Since there are no BUYs on e.g. 01/08/2017, it's not even evaluating the measure. Since that cell doesn't correspond to any rows in the original table, it's not doing any computations.
If you had a BUY and a SELL on the same day, it should show up in both columns on that day.