Format sum of time spent from CSV import

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys, 

I'm new to PowerBI and I rarely use excel.
I would be glad if someone could help me. 

I can export a CSV file containing time spent on a certain activity (remote support).

In this case the column is "Duration". Right next to that is "Accessed by" which is populated with the name of the person who carried out the remote session. there are 5 different people in this list.

I tried to add a new column where it would calculate the total time in HH:mm but I get this strange result of 04:20?

On the graph it looks even stranger. 

All I want is a graph showing the total sum of time spent in HH:mm for each of the people in the table. 

I'm sorry for the silly question. It probably is something super simple, but for the life in me, I can't figure it out. 

I would appreciate the help. 

[zenisekd · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous ,

You are calculating a column, based on all values in the 'duration' column, plus you don't format it afterward, so you get a date-time format. I replicated your problem:

So your problem is that you a) calculate a column and b) don't format it well. 

What you need to do instead is to calculate a measure and make sure it is well formatted:

However the time format doesn't work for sums in visuals mostly. Please refer to: to: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/sum-of-time-duration/td-p/1824052

Kudos and mark as solution appreciated 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the quick reply. 

 
I understand the reason now a bit better. 
It's still a shame that I can't generate a simple donut or bar chart with this measure. 

When I try to drop in the new measure into the value of a chart, it's automatically moved to tooltips. 
I am not sure why. 

I did get the correct output and sum of time spent, but I can only visualize it in a text card or table.

Not really what I'm looking for here. 

A simple bar or donut chart would be far more suitable for my needs.

I tried a simple chart, based on the actual sum of Hrs in excel, and I got this abomination. 

I really don't know why the size of the donut slice does not correspond with the size of the value. 

Either way, thanks for the tip. 

[zenisekd]

@Anonymous 

If you want to display it in a doughnut, I suggest you calculate a number value (by creating a new measure either in minutes or hours (multiply the number by 24 (hours) and 60 (minutes) - https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/sum-of-time-duration/td-p/1824052 ) and use this measure as the value in the doughnut. Then take the 'Total Duration' and place it to tooltip. You can also adjust special tooltip, so it would show only the duration value (but the doughnut would be calculated by the Total Duration (minutes) - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-tooltips?tabs=powerbi-desktop.