How to use the CALENDAR() function? A practical example?

[KristinaBakic]

Hi!

I'm struggling to understand how to use the new CALENDAR-function. It's a new function, so no info of it's use is really around. Could someone provide a real world example on how to use it? Is it used in the abcence of an actual calendar table or used to "mark" a table as a calendar table or something else?

[Shahid12523]

CALENDAR() creates a date table from a start date to an end date.

Example:

Calendar =
CALENDAR ( DATE(2019,1,1), DATE(2021,12,31) )

→ Gives a continuous [Date] column.
Then add Year/Month/Quarter columns and mark it as a Date table for relationships.

👉 Use it when you don’t already have a calendar table.

[konstantinos]

I am also struggling to find a real world scenario to use, tried but didn't manage to make it work..For sure is not for marking a table as a date table - mark as date table will be come in later releases..Maybe ( without being 100% sure ) they will make sense when Calculated Table feature released and help create date tables in DAX..

http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/How-to-mark-Date-table/m-p/3202#M591

[WillT]

Since we released the Calculated Tables work I thought I'd post a couple of articles back here:

Here's an intro to how calculated tables work: 

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-desktop-calculated-tables/

and for reference, here's an outline for the CALENDAR function

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn802546.aspx

Hope that helps! Please click 'Accept as Solution' so we know the thread's been resolved!

Thanks

[AlexGorev]

CALENDAR function just returns a date range defined by the start and end date parameters. Fully agree with the previos post that this will be useful when we release the Calculated Table feature... which is comming soon!

Hope this helps!

Alex.