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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
3 years ago
Solved

Currency Conversion Power Bi

Hi All,

 

This might be a very basic question to many of you. I am trying to create a model where all my transactions carried out in different currencies is translated into USD using montly exchange rates.

 

My model has three tables,  1) calendar (marked as date table), 2) fact_transaction table (this table has transaction values as well as transation date) and 3) exchange rate table (containing monthly average exchange rates on 1st date of each month against multiple currencies).

 

Relationship is direct between calendar and transaction date as well as calendar and monthly exchange rate date.

 

Help to bring clarity would be appreciated.

  • johnt75's avatar
    johnt75
    3 years ago

    You could do it as a measure like

    USD Amount Measure =
    SUMX (
        'Transactions',
        VAR CurrencyRate =
            LOOKUPVALUE (
                'Exch rate'[rate],
                'Exch Rate'[Date],
                    DATE ( YEAR ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), MONTH ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), 1 ),
                'Exch rate'[Currency], 'Transactions'[Currency]
            )
        RETURN
            'Transactions'[Amount] * CurrencyRate
    )
    

    but I think performance would likely be better having a calculated column and then building measures based on that. If it was a column then it would be calculated once, during data refresh, and then you could have measures to perform sum, average etc on the calculated column without having to pay the cost of all the lookups.

    Best advice is to try both ways and use DAX Studio to compare performance

4 Replies

  • You could create a calculated column in the transactions table like

    USD Amount =
    VAR CurrencyRate =
        LOOKUPVALUE (
            'Exch rate'[rate],
            'Exch Rate'[Date],
                DATE ( YEAR ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), MONTH ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), 1 ),
            'Exch rate'[Currency], 'Transactions'[Currency]
        )
    RETURN
        'Transactions'[Amount] * CurrencyRate
    
    • Anonymous's avatar
      Anonymous
      Not applicable

      Hi John,

       

      This did work. But i was wondering if instead of adding conditional column, there was a way to achieve this through dax measures.

       

      Since i intend to add more factual transaction table and as far as i know measures are way better in terms of performance than calculated columns.

       

      • johnt75's avatar
        johnt75
        Super User

        You could do it as a measure like

        USD Amount Measure =
        SUMX (
            'Transactions',
            VAR CurrencyRate =
                LOOKUPVALUE (
                    'Exch rate'[rate],
                    'Exch Rate'[Date],
                        DATE ( YEAR ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), MONTH ( 'Transactions'[Transaction date] ), 1 ),
                    'Exch rate'[Currency], 'Transactions'[Currency]
                )
            RETURN
                'Transactions'[Amount] * CurrencyRate
        )
        

        but I think performance would likely be better having a calculated column and then building measures based on that. If it was a column then it would be calculated once, during data refresh, and then you could have measures to perform sum, average etc on the calculated column without having to pay the cost of all the lookups.

        Best advice is to try both ways and use DAX Studio to compare performance

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable

    johnt75 - thank you so much. Both methods worked.