General questions on CALCULATE

[jkapso751]

Hi all,

I have two (hopefully easy) general questions on best practices for newbies when using a CALCULATE function:

1. Is it better to use a column reference or a measure as a first argument?  Just wondering, because you have to consider another layer of context transition when referencing a measure (and I'd like to keep things as simple as possible).

=CALCULATE([Measure1],...

=CALCULATE(sum('DATA'[Amount]),...

2. What, if any, is the difference between the following two expressions?

=CALCULATE(sum('DATA'[Amount]),...

=CALCULATE('DATA'[Sum of Amount],...

As always, many thanks!

JK

[jkapso751]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the feedback; appreciate your help.

For #2, the function was calculating an amount.  Maybe the [Sum of Amount] was an implicit measure?  Not sure.  Nevertheless, I did change my DAX formulas to match the first expression.

Best regards,

John K.

[ppm1 · Accepted solution]

1. Those are equivalent, but it is best practice to re-use existing measures if possible.

2. The first is a valid expression while the second will give an error in a measure due to the naked column reference.

Pat