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MG86
Advocate II
Advocate II

Calculated Column: Which syntax is better?

Hi, mostly just curious here as both work, but also wanting to optimize for performance:

 

I have a Projects table with a row for every project status mutation. So a project can be New, go into Quotation, go into Accepted, go into Production, get Invoiced etc. Basically a funnel. Now it happens that some projects have gone into Quotation multiple times, and I want to retrieve the earliest date that a project went into Quotation in a Calcultated Column.

 

Given that, which is the better syntax:


Syntax A:

 

VAR Projectnr = 'Projects'[Projectnumber]

RETURN

    MINX (

        FILTER (

            'Projects',

            'Projects'[Projectnumber] = Projectnr

                && 'Projects'[statusnr] = 14

        ),

        'Projects'[Date]

    )

 

Syntax B:

 

VAR Projectnr = 'Projects'[Projectnumber]

RETURN

    CALCULATE (

        MIN ( 'Projects'[Date] ),

        FILTER (

            'Projects',

            'Projects'[Projectnumber] = Projectnr

                && 'Projects'[statusnr] = 14

        )

    )

 

 

I wonder if there is a core difference between these two and if so what is the difference in characteristics (speed, higher chance of unexpected results)?

 

As Syntax A uses CALCULATE I wonder if that induces a less optimal context transition based calculation whereas Syntax B might not use context transition? Or do they both use context transition but is it not implicit in the syntax with Syntax B?

 

Also, is there a way to measure performance for Calculated Columns in a similar way you can use performance analyzer for report visuals?

1 REPLY 1
v-yiruan-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @MG86 ,

A Calculated Column is processed at Refresh time, and the result will be stored in the memory. Therfore, you can see the physical column added to an existing table in your model when go to the "Data" tab. Base on my research, I did not find any tool to monitor the running speed and performance of the calculated column. In addition, about the MIN and MINX used in the two calculation columns you mentioned, you can refer to the following blogs to find more.

Difference Between MIN, MINA, MINX In DAX

Improve Power BI Performance by Optimizing DAX

Best Regards

Community Support Team _ Rena
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

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