Measure madness

[torh]

I have 2 measures to calculate Year over Year changes. One in percentage, the other in nominal value.

They look like this:

YoY FB% = ([FB] - [FBPreviousYear]) / [FBPreviousYear] 

YoY FB = ([FB] - [FBPreviousYear])

I created 2 scorecard to visualize these measures, but somehow I get a negative 'YOY FB%' but my YOY FB is positive.

How is this possible? There is no mathematical way one could be positive and the other negative.

Images here:

http://postimg.org/image/vzf7pd0bj/

http://postimg.org/image/dcrs3hcf9/

http://postimg.org/image/x9s03tfcr/

[markvsql]

One thing that may help with debugging is to create a measure for [FB] - [FBPreviousYear] and then reference THAT measure in your formauls above.

[torh · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

In the end I figured it by accident when trying to debug.

Basically the measure YoY FB% had a format of Percentage and was behaving as expected. 

The measure YoY FB, which is the nominal representation of YoY movement, was of format Currency. And NOT behaving as expected. For FB < FBPreviousYear, the YoY should be negative. But it was always showing as positive.

If I changed the format to anything else, like general, number etc., it would show as negative.

Not sure if this is documented somewhere, but maybe the currency format only show absolute values?

Thanks

Tor

[WillT]

That definitely sounds like a bug, Tor. I can't reproduce it but if you still see the problem, please Send a Frown from the Desktop we can track it down.

[konstantinos]

Try    YoY FB% = DIVIDE([FB] - [FBPreviousYear]) ;[FBPreviousYear] ) since probably the division is happening before substraction..

[torh]

Sorry, provided same results as the existing formula. 

[itchyeyeballs]

It is mathematically possible if the value for [FBPreviousYear]  is negative

positve - negative = positive

positive / negative = negative

[Haegi]

If you want to abstract the sign of youre result you can use the matematical function ABS().

It's return the absolute value of the parameter.