Forum Discussion

powerbilearner9's avatar
powerbilearner9
Regular Visitor
8 years ago

Managing Relationships

Hello,

 

I am having an issue managing relationships across tables. I am trying to link two tables; Table 1 is Planned Expenditures by Fiscal Year and Table 2 is Actual Expenditures. When I attempt to use the "Month" column to link these two tables, I get an error message that says "You can't create a relationship between these two columns because one of the columns must have unique values." Obviously, the months will have the same values, but is there a workaround to link these tables?

2 Replies

  • TomMartens's avatar
    TomMartens
    Super User
    8 years ago

    Hey,

     

    please excuse, but the information you provided is not sufficient to provide all the information you need to proceed.

     

    To solve the problem you are facing, you have to conquer the concept of "different granularities" for this reason please have a look at this site

    Also read this

    If you still have any questions, I will be happy to provide help

     

    Regards

    Tom

  • v-qiuyu-msft's avatar
    v-qiuyu-msft
    Community Support
    8 years ago

    Hi powerbilearner9,

     

    Power BI only support 1:N and 1:1 relationships, N:N relationship is not supported, just as the error message stated. 

     

    In your scenario, please check if there any common column has distinct values in one of the table, if it does, you can create a relationship based on this column. If not, then you need to create a bridge table which contains distinct month values, then create relationships Table1(N) <-> Bridge(1) <-> Table2(N). Makes sure Cross Filter Direction set as Both for these relationships. 

     

     

    Reference:

    Create and manage relationships in Power BI Desktop

      

    Best Regards,
    Qiuyun Yu