Forum Discussion
Advocate ICount and Distinct Count showing the same labels in the values field well
Hi ferdsjoseph,
This is a known UI behavior in Power BI Desktop, especially when using implicit measures in visuals like Matrix or Table. As observed, both "Count" and "Distinct Count" appear with the same label when added to the Values field, which can lead to confusion unless they are manually renamed.
Although this is not considered a functional bug, the summarizations themselves are accurate the labeling inconsistency has been a long-standing usability concern, particularly when compared to Excel’s Pivot Table.
There is an existing Idea thread on the Power BI Ideas forum requesting clearer labeling for implicit measures, which you may consider upvoting.
https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Ideas/idb-p/fbc_ideas
Your feedback is valuable and helps highlight areas for improvement. If you wish, you can submit this formally through the Power BI Support channel to ensure it reaches the product team.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/support/create-support-ticket
Thank you.
Advocate IThanks, Rita. I do know about renaming fields in visuals. It's just that with this issue, I have to be careful I rename the correct one since they look the same unless I right-click and check what summarization is being done. I was hoping Microsoft would fix this behavior in PBI Desktop. In Excel, this issue doesn't exist in pivot tables. Have a nice day!
Super UserHi ferdsjoseph
The whole issue here is mostly a UI story.
Dragging fields into the Values pane is a less recommended practice, because:
A. It’s less flexible
B. It gives you less control
C. It often causes filter context issues, especially in total rows
The general recommendation is to create explicit DAX measures instead of relying on implicit ones.
There’s a detailed article on the topic:
Understanding explicit vs. implicit measures in Power BI
As for the label naming – this is a known issue.
There’s also an open idea from 2019:
Distinct count vs Count Viz Pane Difference
Feel free to vote.
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly