REDUCE the # of measures with Calculation Groups In Power BI

Sometimes you end up with a LOT of measures that are related. You can reduce the number of measures with Calculation Groups in Power BI and clean up your field list!
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#PowerBI #CalcGroups #GuyInACube

[@SolutionsAbroad]

This is so useful is SO MANY WAYS! Having these calculation groups pre-created for my future reports. Thanks Patrick!

[@sarahcook9129]

I teach a simple introduction class for an accounting product and I always recommend you guys as a resource for those looking for videos that are easy to follow. I learn new things from your channel as well. I love the short videos as it sparks ideas for things I can use to help me build dashboards for my own projects and gives me great direction for when someone asks about YoY, now I don't have to tell them to do as many DAX. So helpful!! AS ALWAYS.

[@guilhemdelorme9089]

This is great! I used to manually build slicer tables and construct switch measures to replicate that kind of behaviour, but this is much more scalable.

[@charliemather3368]

Patrick. Thanks. Good stuff! Good to note that implicit measures are no longer available if you add a calculation group. I know that explicit measures are best practice, but that can be a surprise to those unaware of that behavior.

[@thestormoverkrynn]

I like it, but the lack of actual measures appearing in the calculation group will confuse users to no end. Would be great if they would just auto-generate named measures that could be dragged into visuals individually, using a slicer/filter seems a bit 'hacky'. Nice clear video though, as ever!

[@Le-RACH]

WOW, JUST WOW.... EXACTLY WHAT IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR, MADE MY DAY! THANKS PATRICK!!

[@GuyInACube]

Love it! Glad it made your day Ricardo! 👊

[@shirleysmith3409]

I have been saving this video for ages as I knew someday it will be useful and it just did!!! It saved me tons of headaches trying to put in place a requirement from the business. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us!

[@Ikarabaev]

I was able to reduce the number of measures from 178 to 61 thanks to calculation groups! This is so useful!

[@RVAraghav]

Mind blowing. Thank you Patrick for explaining it beautifully!

[@rosswaterston]

Great video, it's really made it clear what is required to set up calculation groups, I'll enjoy getting to grips with them over the next couple of projects.

[@AnalyticswithNags]

Good learning. You both are doing a great service by en lighting the people like us.

[@yuqinghuang5891]

Hey Nags, your video is pretty helpful too!

[@dangelo90]

This is awesome idea! This can introduce completely different usage scenarios without any complexity to the DAX and keeping performance to the maximum.

[@GuyInACube]

Indeed! It's a game changer 👊

[@phyberoptx]

I'm just starting with Calculation Groups, and I agree that they are a powerful tool in the toolbox. Things I'm missing with them: sorting, ability to rename a specific column in a group for one visual.

[@ajaaskelainen]

I wish there would be more videos explaining calculation groups, @Patrick. This is so good that I had to track back to this video after watching it a year ago!

[@allthingspowerbiwithadebol3576]

This is definitely a game changer for me. Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

[@GuyInACube]

Awesome to hear! 👊

[@venkateshns2003]

Amazing!!!! Will solve many of the present ways of creating measures

[@vpalacios8856]

This is so easy to follow. Now I can create better Power BI reports. Awesome! Thanks Patrick.

[@sscott020382]

Simply Amazing, this makes development so much faster.

[@GuyInACube]

It can definitely help 👊

[@neelkanthbk]

The tip on sorting the table by hiding the field was worth its weight in Gold!!! It solved a problem for which I was seeking solutions from weeks. Thanks a ton for sharing :)

[@maxzr]

Excellent issue! I created a bunch of measures to obtain several measures from two anothers that do the "Top N + Others" calculation with two different variables. There are like 30 formulas for each group and it is hard for others to read them. Now, I can write (again) the 30 formulas just once and, with selected measures i can manage between the two variables. Gonna try. Thanks.

[@mazchen]

BIG thumbs up! See alot potential in that concept! Thanks for explaining it in an easy understandable way!

[@GuyInACube]

Most welcome! Thanks for watching 👊

[@indrewhite]

This is amazing! Love your videos. Thanks for sharing!

[@GuyInACube]

Appreciate that! Thanks for watching👊

[@stephenfrey3793]

Thanks for putting this together! Very helpful!

[@nh9518]

Amazing. Thank you for this demo

[@GuyInACube]

Most welcome Najim! 👊

[@wendyjeepin7432]

Wow, one of the best improvements to my meager power bi skills, I love this , thanks!

[@jaymehta3320]

This is great. Thanks for creating this video. Helps a lot!

[@javiercarrasco2752]

Thanks a lot Patrick! Perfectly explained!!

[@Lixia123]

WOW! This is so powerful, love it!

[@wnualplaud2132]

Hi Patrick, Thanks for always sharing the tips. I feel like I discover gold here when I watch videos from your channel.

[@spen2431]

as just about everyone else has said..... "WOW!". Thanks Patrick

[@GuyInACube]

Appreciate that Spencer! 👊

[@beckyshao1729]

Wow, this is awesome!!! thanks Patrick!!!

[@ezequielalmeida6378]

This is pure gold! Thank you!!

[@ocomediador]

Awesome feature!! Thank you for that!

[@Kmsbi]

This is an awesome idea. Thanks, Patrick

[@powerbiisrael6819]

WOW! Really awesome! Thanks Patrick

[@st3phgr1ce]

So awesome to be able to build this in PowerBI- just like you can in SSAS!

[@GuyInACube]

Yes! This has been a long awaited feature.

[@jefffischer7734]

This is amazing and we look forward to using!👍

[@jessmau]

This is awesome! Thanks Patrick

[@eaithiagosilva]

Dude you just got yourself a huge fan! Thx for that!

[@GuyInACube]

WOW! Appreciate that a LOT! 👊

[@njmd12]

I freaking love this!!! You've just shown me a great solution to what I was trying to implement in my reports!!

[@njmd12]

I'm quite new to PowerBi and have been fighting with my employer to get properly trained in this software, but what I've already learnt from following you guys is better than any training I had so far!

[@marcosadlercreutz]

Wow!! Great stuff!! So useful. Thanks a lot!

[@mattlakin5023]

Great video, thanks Patrick. Is there any way to add conditional formatting to individual columns when using this approach? Thanks.

[@ncbshiva]

This is very useful in my organisation as i have a hell lot of measures needs to be created for all the time intelligence calculations.

[@Bharath_PBI]

I had simulated calculation groups in ssas tabular 2016, and have been using it since then, as it didn't had sets concept. July release made it much easier. 👍 Guy in a cube on fore arm 👊

[@chethankumar3655]

Thank Patrick, just wow

[@reddysekhar459]

This is really awesome! Thank you so much!

[@cherrywacko]

This is so awesome. Thank you for a great tip.

[@alfredsfutterkiste7534]

Finally I see these calculation groups that caused such a fuss in the community in action :)

[@GuyInACube]

Woot! Thanks for watching 👊

[@mangeshmehendale4139]

What do I do when I have a question on anything Power BI?????? I head out here!!! You effing beauty - that cleared up so many things! Cheers

[@GuyInACube]

wow! Love to hear that! Glad it was helpful for you. 👊

[@samueldelice9015]

Great article ! I use calculation Group for a custommer report and he love this features. But the first drawbacks he reveal is that it can use slicer / filtre nor sort order columns. If somebody has any tip on how to enable sorting by calculation item, you Will make my day !!

[@debayannag6611]

Awesome Patrick!!

[@thailynguyen]

Awesome, thank you so much for this

[@fernandosa8685]

You just broke my mind, pretty amazing! Would've saved me so much time - I assume there's no way to vary the order in which they display and/or change the names in charts like we do with other measures? Maybe w/ additional columns...?

[@JoelShafron]

There is an "Ordinal" field that will allow you to change the order that they are shown.

[@ChrisCollao]

I was wondering this week how could I filter measures in a visualization. Now I have my answer :) ty so much

[@muzahidali12]

Pain relief. Thank you 😊

[@lucaravaziol3180]

Simply awesome!

[@Acheiropoietos]

Well done Patrick.

[@benignoguilarte2806]

This is just Great, nice job - Amazing!

[@bcippitelli]

Amazing!!! Thanks Dude!

[@GuyInACube]

Appreciate that Bruno! 👊

[@alexkim7270]

That's just wonderful, Patrick. Thank you. I see that you've changed everything to just using the "Time Intelligence" group. Can I assume it is safe for me to delete my existing measures, and change all my reference to the new field (in your case, "Name")?

[@kishoreo8623]

Really awesome on the caluation group

[@andrewharvey9697]

Great video. I love how the YTD functions can work. it will reduce the formulas by heaps. I will look at the other videos but am also looking to do something similar for budget and goal so in the same way that you have MTD, YTD etctetc for a selected measure. I also have budget and goal (which come from different tables from the filter criteria is the same. So kind of like Revenue = Calculate( Sum(ReportedValue), Apply some filter) Revenue Budget = Calculate(sum(BudgetValue, Apply same filter) Revenue Goal = Calculate (sum(GoalValue), apply same filter) It explodes x fold when you need to the time inteligence. I am going to see how calculation groups could handle this case. will let you know how I go but if you have any tips, would love to get feedback. Cheers

[@Bharathrs1985]

you just saved a lot of time for me.. I was supposed have 200+ metrics.. Also we can have these as builtin templates in powerbi in future probably...

[@davidfullstone]

Amazing video, thanks.

[@michaeldevor4409]

Thank you very much for these videos, they have been a great help. I liked this video as it helped me remove over 60 measures however I am wondering how or if the calculation items can be used in other visuals. I have for example a line and stacked column chart where the line is (active employees YoY % Var) of a measure other than what is covered in the columns (New Hires and New Hires SPLY by month). Do I have to recreate my individual measures to use them in this fashion?

[@richmondlotelugukurradu8280]

Excellent.. it’s of great help👍👍👍

[@gregorypenaevertz226]

That's Great, thanks for the excellent content 🙌

[@s3d843]

This is dope, I don't see external tools tab though. Also, I feel as though volume weights should be calculated through this method as well that can be dynamic by selected measures and selected dates. I'm new to this, but I'm trying to pick it up!

[@user-sv7vg3lc7t]

Thanks a lot for the video. Is there a way of using Tabular editor for calculation difference, sum or other aggregation of 2 or more different measures?

[@pardeepjanjua78]

I am fairly new ro Power Bi and current have a multitude of measures and never new this even existed so I am thankful for this video 👍🏽 Does this impact on the performance of loading and manipulating reports once published?

[@piesogrodnika572]

Patric, this is PBing awesome!!!

[@Kingfish214rs]

We have been using calculation groups heaps already! Fantastic functionality. We haven't been able to solve for a calculation group that presents the gross profit % (gross profit / revenue) across multiple measures - actual, budget and forecast. We haven't been able to combine this with a measure that presents the variance between actual and budget. Doing actual, budget and forecast gross margin % works fine down the column. But we can't get it to do actual vs budget or actual vs forecast.

[@simenjohannesen4647]

You can create another Calculation Group called e.g. Scenario which holds the Actual, Budget and Forecast scenarios as Calculation Items. There you can also create a Calculation Item called e.g Variance as the difference between Actual and Budget. Be sure you understand the Precedence attribute when working with several Calculation Groups.

[@eivindhaugen8640]

@@simenjohannesen4647 is there any examples on how to solve this?

[@avivkoren527]

Thank you it's amazing

[@denisedias8331]

This is so cool! Thanks Patrick. I have a "Can't display the visual" message. It says can't determine relationships between the fields. What am I doing wrong?

[@yarrowmcconnell5764]

great video! such an powerful step up in utility of measures. as you say... next step is to combine with dynamic axes.... let's see that video soon! :)

[@sisuchi18]

I like it! Is there also a work around when working with a card (visual)? Not sure if SELECTEDMEASURE is even possible with a card?

[@jasonwoodward5501]

This is good. Thank you

[@zakirchotani5550]

Limitation or drawback of using calculation groups is that you may be unable to apply conditional formatting by measures. For example, in Patrick's example @ 6:44 , what if you wanted to conditionally format a gradients YoY column that applies a gradient theme on most negative to positive amounts? Let me know if someone has a workaround it.

I have submitted this as an idea ideas.powerbi.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=2bbc3ffd-78f2-ea11-bf21-0003ff52cdee.

[@hiteshsharma618]

Is there a workaround it ??

[@reynaldomalave]

Thanks Patrick, as usual you guys always save the day! I do have a question see if you can point me in the right direction. Can i select a measure depending on the user that is logged in? I have three two levels in my RLS in three levels of granularity. What I want is if a manager logs in show the visualiztion with the corresponding measure and then the west coast supervisor or the east coast supervisor. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated Thanks, Reynaldo

[@drummerboi4eva]

Great explaination !

[@Alticroo]

Thanks man this is awesome. What happens if I have multiple measures?

[@waldof86]

This is amazing!

[@ravinderreddy4757]

Great new feature and you are awesome with the video

[@shilpiverma4004]

This is very informative. Can the calculation group be created by any other external tools like - Dax Studio?

[@Nobrezando]

I love the way you explain things, like we were dudes, pals, friends, that's really nice, haha cheers from Brazil

[@mohammadazadi3616]

Hi, thank you for ur good tutorials. Can we do dimensions group instead of calculation group in Tabular Editor?

[@mattjessop7388]

This is such a game changer. Currently we have to create these as separate measures, whereas we can just get users to know what group they need, rather than having to know which measures.

[@Rrocker1405]

Thank you @patrick @guyinthecube, I have implemented the calculation for a report but the complex nature of the requirement is to have 3 layers of drill down at row level and 3 layers of drill down at column level and all of them have time intelligence e.g., MTD, QTD, YOY against Actuals, Budget and Actuals v Budget information per selected criteria e.g., Net sales, Gross Sales, PBT et cetera. The performance just drags completely and just fails later after hitting threshold. Could there be anything that can be done to improve the performance? The measures uses keep filters, selected measure with time intelligence calculation. Needless to say it is a matrix view. Any tip, suggestion would help.

[@amanbajaj8458]

Hi Patrick, Can we use Calculation Groups in the waterfall chart where we show calculation items simultaneously? Appreciate the response

[@NATOarkiteks]

Now this is bloody useful...If I didn't see it before, I do now. The external tools integration is really going to open up this puppy now. Exciting times! Only problem now is time to actually integrate all these cool developing features.

[@akhileshmaithani3836]

Awesome video. Can use these calculation groups in visuals like in charts?

[@OmahaChiliGuy]

I was hoping no one else had said it, but six days later, several beat me to it. Oh well, here's my spin... this is a metric ton of bananas, my friend! I can't wait to play with this!!

[@GuyInACube]

HAHA all good! We agree with you 👊

[@montukhatri]

Beautiful stuff

[@clnguye]

Awesome video!

[@katsquintano8275]

Thanks for this. Saved me from being fired. I've been searching for ages on how to do this!

[@gafitas007]

Awesome Patrick, it just exploit my mine🤘

[@rohitkhatri7322]

Great Explanation🙌, It saved a lot of time. But now I also want to do conditional formatting on different columns. For example my YTD column should be of yellow color and MTD column should be of Green. how to perform this?

[@ankursrivastava8635]

Amazing ! This help to reduce lots of time for writing DAX and also simplify the model. I have one query, how can I use it into another measure. For example, I have a measure TY YTD Sales by using TOTALYTD function and I can use it into any other measure. Like Is there any way to use the Calculation Group into any other measure?

[@aruns8412]

Super Nice one. Can we use same Time calculated group(Mtd,YTD..) for multiple values (Qty,Sales) on the same matrix ? If yes, can I rename the column names in the matrix? Eg: "Qty MTD" and "Sales MonthToDate"?

[@motichoorladdu]

WoW just WoW!!!!! I do this for a living daily. This just compressed my data model a whole lot. Did I just have a "work" orgasm or what!!! I maintain 100s of measures PTD, YTD, MTD, FY for each of the measures. Sometimes my measure tables look so big i mistake them for my fact tables. I need just one calculation group and I am done. Reconstituting my data model this weekend just to surprise myself.

[@jaafaralsharif8333]

Very nice Thank you very much