Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Vote for your favorite vizzies from the Power BI Dataviz World Championship submissions. Vote now!

Reply
Xboraxe
Frequent Visitor

Count appearance of string in a comma-separated data column does not count values after the first co

I have two tables:

 

Products table has a single column with one product per field:

 

Capture.PNG

 

 

 

 

List table has several columns but the column I'm interested in has fields that can have as little as one product to as much as 17, all separated with a comma and no spaces in between:

 

Capture1.PNG

 

 

 

The issue I'm facing and need help with is to correctly count each product either, ideally as as a measure. I tried two measures but they both gave me an incorrect count of blanks; there are no blank values either table.
What I found is that both measures count only the *first* value they find in the List column and then continue counting subsequent rows:

 

Capture2.PNG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can I correctly count all values in each field from the List table and have zero "blank" counts?

 

Thanks!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
tamerj1
Community Champion
Community Champion

@Xboraxe 
Please delete or deactivate that relationship or use 

Customer Products at M0 =
CALCULATE (
    SUMX (
        VALUES ( Products[Product] ),
        SUMX (
            VALUES ( Query1[M0_LIST] ),
            INT ( CONTAINSSTRING ( Query1[M0_LIST], Products[Product] ) )
        )
    ),
    CROSSFILTER ( Query1[M0_LIST], Products[Product], NONE )
)

View solution in original post

7 REPLIES 7
tamerj1
Community Champion
Community Champion

Hi @Xboraxe 

If the same product is repeated multiple times inside the string and you want to consider that in the counting then please use

Customer Products at M0 =
SUMX (
    VALUES ( Products[Product] ),
    SUMX (
        VALUES ( Query1[M0_LIST] ),
        VAR String = Query1[M0_LIST]
        VAR Items =
            SUBSTITUTE ( String, ",", "|" )
        VAR Length =
            COALESCE ( PATHLENGTH ( Items ), 1 )
        VAR T1 =
            GENERATESERIES ( 1, Length, 1 )
        VAR T2 =
            SELECTCOLUMNS ( T1, "@Item", PATHITEM ( Items, [Value] ) )
        RETURN
            COUNTROWS ( FILTER ( T2, [@Item] = Products[Product] ) )
    )
)

Hi @tamerj1 , thank you. I tried using the first measure and still gave me the incorrect counts, using the second one gave me this result.

 

Capture01.PNGCapture02.PNG

 

The same product is not repeated inside the string, but two clients can definitely have the same products but they would be listed in different rows.

tamerj1
Community Champion
Community Champion

@Xboraxe 

Can you please explain exactly what is the problem?

Hi @tamerj1 , with your second measure I got a count of 1 for each product:

 

Capture02.PNG

 

Also, the List table contains blank values/rows too, and as for active relationships I see that the Product and Lists table are connected in the Product[Products] column and the List[M0_LIST] column, one to many relationship. I don't know if this is causing the issue and hope this gives more clarity to my issue.

tamerj1
Community Champion
Community Champion

@Xboraxe 
Please delete or deactivate that relationship or use 

Customer Products at M0 =
CALCULATE (
    SUMX (
        VALUES ( Products[Product] ),
        SUMX (
            VALUES ( Query1[M0_LIST] ),
            INT ( CONTAINSSTRING ( Query1[M0_LIST], Products[Product] ) )
        )
    ),
    CROSSFILTER ( Query1[M0_LIST], Products[Product], NONE )
)

That was it! Thanks a lot @tamerj1 

tamerj1
Community Champion
Community Champion

Hi @Xboraxe 

please try

Customer Products at M0 =
SUMX (
VALUES ( Products[Product] ),
SUMX (
VALUES ( Query1[M0_LIST] ),
INT ( CONTAINSSTRING ( Query1[M0_LIST], Products[Product] ) )
)
)

Helpful resources

Announcements
Power BI DataViz World Championships

Power BI Dataviz World Championships

Vote for your favorite vizzies from the Power BI World Championship submissions!

Sticker Challenge 2026 Carousel

Join our Community Sticker Challenge 2026

If you love stickers, then you will definitely want to check out our Community Sticker Challenge!

January Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - January 2026

Check out the January 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.

FabCon Atlanta 2026 carousel

FabCon Atlanta 2026

Join us at FabCon Atlanta, March 16-20, for the ultimate Fabric, Power BI, AI and SQL community-led event. Save $200 with code FABCOMM.