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RileyPilcher's avatar
RileyPilcher
New Member
1 year ago
Solved

Solving Ambiguous Pathway Error

Hi,

 

I am an amateur Power BI user trying to create a project managament dashboard.  I am running into an issue where i need to have a relationship between two tables, but when i make the join it gets flagged as creating an ambiguous pathway.  This is because these two tables are both connected to another table.  Further details below.

 

Three tables:

- Project table (includes all projects: project number, description, value, etc.)

- Timesheets (includes all timesheets: employee, project number, work instruction number, hours, cost, etc.)

- Work Instructions (includes all work instructions: WI number, project number, description, allowed timeframe, status [active/complete] etc.)

 

Current joins:

- Project > Timesheets (one to many)

- Project > Work Instructions (one to many)

 

The above joins have allowed me to generate multiple visuals on my dashboard.  However, i need to relate the Work Instruction number column of the Work Instructions and Timesheets tables, as below, but i get an ambiguous path error.

 

Wanted/needed join:

- Work Instructions > Timesheets (one to many)

 

The reason i want/need this join is I am trying to apply a filter to a donut chart to only show the hours remaining on active work instructions. I have calculated remainaing hours as (estimated hours of work instruction - total hours worked on work instruction).  I have this filter set but it only applys to the Work Instruction table data but not to the Timesheets data as theres no relationship there to allow this.

 

I would be very happy to hear any advice or reccomendations.  Thanks.

 

Riley

3 Replies

  • RileyPilcher 

    Create a bridge table that contains unique values of Work Instruction Number and link it to both the Work Instructions and Timesheets tables.

    Create a new table:

    WorkInstructionBridge = DISTINCT('Work Instructions'[WI Number])

    Create relationships:
    Work Instructions[WI Number] → WorkInstructionBridge[WI Number] (One-to-Many)
    Timesheets[WI Number] → WorkInstructionBridge[WI Number] (Many-to-One)
    Use the WorkInstructionBridge table in your measures and slicers to avoid ambiguous paths.

     

    💌 If this helped, a Kudos 👍 or Solution mark would be great! 🎉
    Cheers,
    Kedar
    Connect on LinkedIn

     

    • RileyPilcher's avatar
      RileyPilcher
      New Member

      Thank you very much.  This solved my problem instantly.