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

Compete to become Power BI Data Viz World Champion! First round ends August 18th. Get started.

Reply
Jarrgh
Frequent Visitor

Calculation groups and Implicit measures

I'm implementing calcualtion groups in a PBIX model, using tabular editor, to handle time intelligence etc. which is great - saves a lot of time.

But... as calc groups doesn't work with implicit measures, tabular editor forces "Discourage Implicit Measures = true" effectively removing the option.

 

Is it possible to renable implicit measures despite using calculation groups?

8 REPLIES 8
v-kelly-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi  @Jarrgh ,

 

Check a similar thread below:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Tabular-Editor-Calculation-groups/td-p/1283596

 

Best Regards,
Kelly

Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution!

Hi Kelly

 

Thank you for the link - it doesn't excatly cover my question, but i'm afraid i haven't been clear enough.

 

It is clear that tabular editor forces the setting "Discourage Implicit Measures = true", when a model uses calculation groups(CGs), this effectively disables creation of new implicit measures.

The documentation states that CGs are incompatible with implicit measures, but actually Implicit measures work just fine, they are just uaffected by CGs (which ofcourse is important to be aware of)

 

My question is if it is in any way possible to overrule tabular editor, and reenable implict measures while having CGs

 

Hi @Jarrgh ,

 

Have you tried to modify it in Tabular editor?

vkellymsft_0-1628584213983.png

 

Best Regards,
Kelly

Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution!

Hi Kelly

 

yes i tried but it won't allow me to modify the setting (see below)

what i'm looking for is a way to override the restriction directly in tabular editor or in the pbix model

john.png

Hi  @Jarrgh ,

 

Can you transfer the measures to calculated columns and try again?

I checked below reference again and found that it is only supported in Tabular model,if in power bi,it will be disabled:

When you enable calculation groups, Tabular Editor enables the Model option Discourage Implicit Measure.

If you remove all the calculation groups, you can restore that property to False to enable implicit measures again.

However, it is a best practice to only expose explicit measures in a Tabular model.

If you use Tabular Editor, you can find macros to quickly create measures from numeric columns: 
https://github.com/otykier/TabularEditor/wiki/Useful-script-snippets

 

Best Regards,
Kelly

Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution!

amitchandak
Super User
Super User

@Jarrgh , my suggestion would be not to use implicit measures

Share with Power BI Enthusiasts: Full Power BI Video (20 Hours) YouTube
Microsoft Fabric Series 60+ Videos YouTube
Microsoft Fabric Hindi End to End YouTube

@amitchandak thank you for the reply - it's not realy a solution though.

I'm aware that implicit measures are not best practice - but they are great for testing without cluttering the datamodel with useless measures.

Are you saying it's completely impossible to reenable implicit measures while using calculation groups?

Replying 3 years later...still the case unfortunately. Here is an article confirming:

https://smootherconsulting.com/learn/power-bi-calculation-groups-and-implicit-measures

Helpful resources

Announcements
August Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - August 2025

Check out the August 2025 Power BI update to learn about new features.

August 2025 community update carousel

Fabric Community Update - August 2025

Find out what's new and trending in the Fabric community.

Top Solution Authors