Confusion about why a Measure is not displayed as a column in Table View

[PaulKraemer]

Hi,

I've used Power BI Desktop to create a report in my own .pbix file that I have been using for test purposes and practice.  I've been asked to copy my report into a working / production .pbix file that includes multiple reports that are in use by the company I work for.  I am new to Power BI and I was not involved with the development of the working / production .pbix file, so I want to be very careful not to "break" anything by adding my report.  

In my test .pbix file, I created a my own Date table following recommendations suggested in this forum. 

I see in the working / production .pbix file, there is a table named Calendar that seems like it was created for this purpose, but in a different manner.  I see that it is not marked as a Date table.  The Time Intelligence option for "Auto date/time" is checked.

I am trying to understand how this "Calendar" table works.  When I look at it in the Data pane, I see a "Date Hierarchy" underneath a field named Date.  I also see what appears to be a Measure named "Footage Required".  The image below is what this Calendar table looks like in the Data pane with the Calendar table fully expanded...

... In Table View, the Calendar table just includes a single column with Date/Time data, as shown below...

... the Footage Required measure is defined as follows:

Footage Required = CALCULATE(SUM(Main[Qty. Required]), KEEPFILTERS(NOT(Main[TicketStatus] == "Done")))

I suspect that the Footage Required measure is intended to aggregate some data from a table named "Main" that is related to each date.  I don't understand why a column is not displayed for Footage Required in Data view for this Calendar table.  If anyone can shed some light on why this might be the case, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

[PaulKraemer]

Thank you @danextian , @Anonymous , @Power2G  for your helpful replies.

I now understand why I would not expect to see the data for measure "Footage Required" in Table View.

I am aware of the reasons not to enable auto date/time and I do not plan to enable this feature in any Power BI projects that I start on my own.

In this particular case, I have been asked to make a small addition to a Power BI Desktop file that was developed by others.  I want to be very cautious not to do anything that will "break" any of the existing reports.  Being new to Power BI, I am afraid to disable the auto date/time feature because I am afraid the existing reports as they are currently constructed might rely on this feature.  Only when I have more experience with Power BI and I feel that I fully understand how all the reports in this file work would I suggest to the people who developed this file that we should consider disabling auto date/time. 

The presence of the Calendar table I mentioned in my original post makes me think it was an attempt to implement a common Date table, but it was never marked as as a Date table.  I can see in Model view that it has one-to-many relationships to just two other tables in the model, whereas there are at least 10 other tables that store dates.  This makes me think that while this Calendar table is used to support date filtering in some reports, other reports most likely rely on the auto date/time feature.  I am afraid that disabling this feature might break some reports unless I first take measures to prevent this from happening.  

Right now, I am just hoping to understand how the developers of this file created this Calendar table.  In the screenshot below, the "Date Hierarchy" shown under Calendar | Date looks the same as the "Date Hierarchy" shown under POItemStock | EntryDate.  Does this mean that these hierarchies were automatically created by the auto date/time feature?  Or is it likely that the developers created these hierarchies on their own?

If these are examples of the auto date/time feature in action, I am puzzled by why a hierarchy does not seem to have been created for POdate | PODate.  This PODate is a calculated table created with the following expression:

POdate = DISTINCT(POMain[PODate])

Is there a reason why the auto date/time feature would not be applied to this single-column table?  

I really appreciate all of you help.

Best regards,
Paul

[danextian · Accepted solution]

That column might have been on many side of relationship. I tested this  by creating a many to many single direction relationship. The one that is on the receiving it of the flow did not create a date hierarchy.

[PaulKraemer]

Thanks @danextian - you are exactly right.  It is actually part of a many-to-many relationship.

I appreciate your help!

[danextian]

Hi @PaulKraemer 

Enabling Auto date/time in Power BI is not advisable. It generates a separate date table for each date, which isn’t visible within Power BI itself. However, these tables become apparent when using external tools like DAX Studio and Tabular Editor or when running specific functions in the DAX query view. These physical tables consume disk space, thereby increasing the size of your data model.

DAX query view

Tabular Editor

DAX Studio

Footage required:

Measures do not need to reside within the same table that they reference. They can be moved to any table. In the context of DAX, measures are not physical entities, so they don’t have columns visible in the table or data view. For their respective values to be visible, measures must be used in visuals. The results can vary depending on the columns in the visual and/or any external filters applied.

[Anonymous]

Hi @PaulKraemer ,

A measure is a dynamic calculation. Measures are never shown as columns in the data view, they are calculations defined in DAX, usually we drag and drop the measure into the visual, and then depending on the current calculation context, the measure is dynamically calculated and output.

It’s placed under the Calendar table for organizational purposes (e.g., to group date-related measures), but it logically operates on the Main table via a relationship (likely between Calendar[Date] and Main[Date]). 
Similarly, you can select the measure and move it to another table under Measure tools.

Best Regards,
Gao
Community Support Team

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[Power2G]

Hi @PaulKraemer 

try this

Footage Required = CALCULATE(
    SUM(Main[Qty. Required]),
    KEEPFILTERS(NOT(Main[TicketStatus] == "Done"))
)

Further information can be found here

https://youtu.be/Zwz3EtCOVDA