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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
8 years ago
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Day Count between two dates - DAX Help

I have seen a number of posts about calculating the day count between two date.  None seem to address my specific use case.   I am tring to calculate the day count between a "Creation Date" and "St...
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  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Hi Anonymous,

     

    If you can't ensure which date column with be the small one, you should add some operation to get the specificity one.

     

    As I write above, min and max function can used to auto return the matched date.

     

    I build a sample table with random date store in date1 and date2, then I can use above formula to get the diff between these date column.

     

    Table formula:

    Sample = ADDCOLUMNS(GENERATESERIES(1,100,1),"Date1",RANDBETWEEN(DATE(2015,1,1),TODAY()),"Date2",RANDBETWEEN(DATE(2015,1,1),TODAY()))

     

    Calculate column:

    Diff = DATEDIFF(MIN([Date1],[Date2]),MAX([Date1],[Date2]),DAY)

     

     

    Reuslt:

     

    Regards,

    Xiaoxin Sheng

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
8 years ago

CanadaMGB

 

Thanks for the feedback, though I am not sure this is a solution.  Based on the instructions it appears the solution you posted is giving me a day count between today and the Start Date.

 

In my use case, I need to simply calc the day count between two specific columns.

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
8 years ago

Hi Anonymous,

 

Based on your description, I think DATEDIFF function will suitable for your requirement.

Sample: calculate column.

 

Day Count = DATEDIFF(MIN([Date 1],[Date 2]),MAX([Date 1],[Date 2]),DAY)

DATEDIFF Function (DAX)

 

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    8 years ago

    Anonymous

     

    This seems like it's a usable solution - however I noticed that in some cases I have a start date greater than an end date in some of the rows.  Is there away to accommodate this in the DAX statement so that it will identify these rows and simply "error" but show results where it will work - like in the paste from excel below?

     

     

     

     

    Thanks!

    • Anonymous's avatar
      Anonymous
      Not applicable
      8 years ago

      Hi Anonymous,


      If you can ensure which date column stored the min date value, you can direct use datediff function without other functions.

      Calculated column: datediff(mindate, maxdate, unit)

      Day Count = DATEDIFF([Min Date Column],[Max Date column],DAY)

       Did you test in excel? If this is a case, you can try to use column index calculate. (for e.g. DATEDIF(A2,B2,"D"))

       

      DATEDIF function

       

      Regards,

      Xiaoxin Sheng

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        8 years ago

        Anonymous

         

        Thanks for the additional input.  As I mentioned in my previous post - the issue seems to be that I have min dates greater than max dates which is throughing an error "In DATEDIFF function, the start date cannot be greater than the end date".  This identifies an issue within the data itself.

         

        I see the errors when I tested in Excel, which is the screen capture I included.  Your excel screen capture rightfully has the Start Dates being after the End Dates.

         

        I was wondering why Power BI doesn't process the error, and rather halts the DAX command, and more importantly if there is a way around it?