topic SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING in DAX Commands and Tips

SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 14:58:56 GMT

Hi.

I have created a calculated measure using the function SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR but somehow I got the "contiguos date selection" error and I don't know how to fix this.

Thank you for your help.

Daniel Kataoka.

Re: SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING

amitchandak — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 16:00:16 GMT

Anonymous , You should always use a date table, joined with your table on a date having a single directional join.

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Re: SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 16:32:39 GMT

Hi, amitchandak.

Tks for your answer.
I already have a date table joined with my fact/s but I also created another table called SpecialDates where I joined with the column date from the date table.

The SpecialDates table is a table with custom dates: all months (jan, feb, mar, apr..) and anothers custom dates (Last Month, 1 Semester, 2 Semester, YTD, Full Year..)

Re: SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING

v-easonf-msft — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:04:34 GMT

Hi， Anonymous

SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR is a time-intelligent function, so it is recommended to perform this function on a calendar table containing consecutive dates.

Make sure you use

CALCULATE([Measure], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR(Calendar[Date]))

rather than

CALCULATE([Measure], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR(Facttable[Date]))

You can also try using filter and DATEADD . The dates returned by SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR are the same as the dates returned by this equivalent formula: DATEADD(dates, -1, year)

Other related threads:

Function 'SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR' expects a contiguous selection Issue

Contiguous date selection error - YTD LY

sameperiodlastyear only works with contiguous date selection

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Eason

Re: SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR NOT WORKING

Ed_T — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 08:52:04 GMT

Adding this solution in case others had the same experience as me. I was getting the 'Function 'SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR' only works with contiguous date selections' error message on a file that had updated monthly for the past year without issue. The error appeared after refreshing the data with a dataflow. During fault finding I tested refreshing the file on a colleague's laptop and it worked fine so I knew I had an issue with my laptop rather than the file itself.

The solution on my laptop was a simple clearing of the Excel cache. As soon as the Excel cache was clear, the file refreshed without the error message coming back and everything worked fine again.