Columns data

[gonrodrigues]

Why sometimes columns are perceived as a SUM and sometimes not? is that related to the data source (in this case Excel)?

Thanks!

[austinsense · Accepted solution]

It has to do with the data type - if the data looks like a number then PBI will assume it can be treated like a number.  If you want to stop that behavior then go to the query editor and explicitly define that column as a text column.

[JohannaO]

I have the oppisit problem. Is there any way to get PBI to understand that a column (with numeric values) to be a measurement? I have tried different data types but nothing happens.

[gonrodrigues]

Yeah i had that same problem! I solved it by 'geting data' again, replacing the old tables with new ones and he understood the columns from new tables as a measurement.. idk why. But ofc this is not a good solution!

[austinsense]

Here's the story with the query editor - don't let it choose the data types for you. The query editor always inserts that second step "Changed Type". Delete that and go through and set the data types yourself.

If you set the column to numeric and run the query it will show up as a number (that you can sum up) on your field list.  If that's not happening then there's some problem that needs to be reported to Microsoft.

[gonrodrigues]

Thank you! @austinsense