Forum Discussion
Table structure
A disconnected helper table is a small table you manually create in Power BI to help organize your Matrix columns. Disconnected means it doesn’t have any relationships with your main data tables it’s mainly for display.
For your scenario, where you want grouped columns like DC Inventory → 100K, 200K, 300K, Power BI doesn’t natively support this layout with multiple measures. That’s why we use a helper table to set up the structure. This table can be used in the Matrix columns along with a SWITCH measure to show the right values for each grouping.
I hope this clarifies the situation. If I’ve misunderstood any part of your situation, please let us know.
You can get close with a Matrix, but not that exact layout natively if each header group (like DC Inventory, Purchase Orders, etc.) contains multiple different measures under it. The usual workaround is to create a small disconnected helper table with columns like Category and Metric, put those on the Matrix columns, and then use a SWITCH() measure to return the correct underlying measure for each combination.
I'd lke to try this but I dont understand this part: create a small disconnected helper table.
Coul you explain it in detail?
A disconnected helper table is a small table you manually create in Power BI to help organize your Matrix columns. Disconnected means it doesn’t have any relationships with your main data tables it’s mainly for display.
For your scenario, where you want grouped columns like DC Inventory → 100K, 200K, 300K, Power BI doesn’t natively support this layout with multiple measures. That’s why we use a helper table to set up the structure. This table can be used in the Matrix columns along with a SWITCH measure to show the right values for each grouping.
I hope this clarifies the situation. If I’ve misunderstood any part of your situation, please let us know.