Smart Narrative Previous Month pulls 0 and not the value

[Squrlswrld]

I have three data points:

• All Centers which is the total number of cases
• Status which is one of 6 options but I am working with Open 
• Report Dates (which are all the first of the month.

I created a measure to get the date of the previous month which is working fine, but when I try and get the Open cases it is returning 0 and not the value of all centers.  My narrative for the most recent month is:

Which while throwing an error for multiple columns is in fact giving me the right total.  When I try a similar narrative for my PrevMonth measure I get 0.

If I replace PrevMonth with 02/01/2023 I get the correct total of 87,193 but need this to be dynamic without having to change that all the time.

What am I doing wrong or should (and how would I) create a calculated table or measure first and use that in the narrative.

Thanks.