Persistent Auto-Summarization of Date Hierarchy Fields in Power BI Even After Updates

[Sreethar_14]

Hello Fabric Community,

I would like to raise a recurring issue I’ve encountered while working with Power BI Desktop, even after upgrading to the latest version.

While using date hierarchy fields (Year, Quarter, Month, Day) from my date table, I consistently face automatic summarization (SUM) of these fields in table visuals. Despite setting the format to “Don’t Summarize” and adjusting the data type to Whole Number or Text as needed, Power BI continues to display these fields as summed values when added to visuals.

I’ve tried:

• Changing the field’s aggregation setting to “Don’t Summarize”

• Modifying data types and data categories

• Creating custom columns

• Reinstalling and updating Power BI to the latest version

This issue persists across different datasets and is particularly disruptive in real-time dashboards and production use cases, where manually adjusting each field repeatedly is inefficient and error-prone.

Request:
Is this a known issue or limitation in the current version of Power BI? If so, is there a roadmap or workaround to prevent default summarization of date hierarchy fields globally? It would be highly beneficial to have more persistent and reliable formatting behavior, especially for enterprise use.

Looking forward to insights or a resolution from the community and product team.

Note:
Even after marking the table as a Date Table and saving the changes, the issue persists. From a real-time usage perspective, it's not always feasible to receive fully structured or clean data from vendors. In such cases, manually adjusting every date-related field becomes highly time-consuming, especially when data resets or refreshes introduce format errors or revert previous settings.

This manual effort is not scalable in production environments and significantly impacts efficiency. A more reliable and persistent behavior for date fields would greatly enhance the usability of Power BI in real-time scenarios.

Thank you,
Sreethar M  B.
Power BI Developer |Data Analyst

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi Sreethar_14,

Could you kindly confirm whether you have submitted this as an idea in the Ideas Forum? If so, please share the link here, as it would be helpful for other community members who may have similar feedback.
In case we do not receive a response, we shall proceed to close this thread. For any further discussions or queries, please initiate a new thread in the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum, where we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi Sreethar_14,

We are following up to see if your query has been resolved. Should you have identified a solution, we kindly request you to share it with the community to assist others facing similar issues.

If our response was helpful, please mark it as the accepted solution and provide kudos, as this helps the broader community.
Additionally, we kindly request you to submit a feature request for this enhancement on the Fabric Ideas - Microsoft Fabric Community, where Microsoft product teams closely monitor popular requests. If enough users support this idea, it will be prioritised in a future Power BI release.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft · Accepted solution]

Thankyou, @amitchandak, for your response.

Hi Sreethar_14,

Thank you for raising this important and insightful issue regarding the persistent auto-summarization of date hierarchy fields in Power BI. We appreciate the detailed steps you have already undertaken and fully understand how this behavior can significantly affect real-time dashboards and production workflows where efficiency and consistency are of utmost importance.

Please note that this behavior is not a bug but a design feature of Power BI. When a field, even if it is not a measure, is placed into the "Values" bucket, Power BI expects aggregation and applies a default aggregation (usually SUM). This is further influenced by the following factors:

1. Power BI’s internal type inference mechanisms.
2. Hierarchical date fields often being numeric, which leads to automatic summarization.
3. Data refreshes may reset field metadata, especially in import mode or when using dataflows, causing previously set aggregation settings to revert.

Kindly follow the workaround steps below to resolve the issue:

1. Use Text-Based Date Parts.Create custom columns to prevent aggregation.
   • MonthName = FORMAT([Date], "MMMM")
   • QuarterName = "Q" & FORMAT([Date], "Q")
2. Create and Use a Custom Date Table. Avoid auto date hierarchies by using a proper calendar table.
   • DateTable = CALENDAR(DATE(2020,1,1), DATE(2030,12,31))
     Subsequently, create non-numeric fields and mark the table as a Date Table.
3. Navigate to File > Options > Data Load and turn off the option "Auto Date/Time for new files."

We are confident that these workarounds will help resolve the issue in your production environment. Additionally, we kindly request you to submit a feature request for this enhancement on the Fabric Ideas - Microsoft Fabric Community, where Microsoft product teams closely monitor popular requests. If enough users support this idea, it will be prioritised in a future Power BI release.

If you find our response satisfactory, please mark it as the accepted solution and provide kudos. This will assist other community members facing similar queries.

Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to the Microsoft Fabric Community.

Thank you.

[v-pbandela-msft]

Hi @Sreethar_14,

I wanted to follow up since we haven't heard back from you regarding our last response. We hope your issue has been resolved.
If the community member's answer your query, please mark it as "Accept as Solution" and select "Yes" if it was helpful.
If you need any further assistance, feel free to reach out.

Thank you,
Pavan.

[v-pbandela-msft]

Hi @Sreethar_14,

Thank you for reaching out in Microsoft Community Forum.

Could you please confirm if the issue has been resolved ? If a solution has been found, it would be greatly appreciated if you could share your insights with the community and accepy your answer as "Accept as solution". This would be helpful for other members who may encounter similar issues.

Thank you for your understanding and assistance.

Regards,
Pavan Bandela.

[v-pbandela-msft]

Hi @Sreethar_14 ,

Thank you @amitchandak  for the prompt response!

Unfortunately, Power BI does not have a global setting to stop the auto-summarization of date hierarchies at the moment. As amitchandak suggested, the Issues Forum  is the best place to get this on the radar for the product team.

I hope that helps, and thanks again for raising this!

If my answer resolve your query,consider accepting it as solution.

Regards,
Pavan

[amitchandak]

@Sreethar_14 , Please log an issue- https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Issues/idb-p/Issues