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markvsql
Resolver I
Resolver I

What determines which numeric fields get Aggregates?

I have a table with three numeric fields. They are Price, Cost, and Profit in the figure below.

No Aggregate.png

 

All three defaulted to Do Not Summarize in the Data view. Thus, they do not appear as an Aggregate field in Report View. What causes Desktop to make this determination? Since this is essentially a Dimension table for this model, I am pretty happy abou this decision. I just want to understand what drove Desktop to make this choice.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Interesting. Just to keep the conversation alive, I observe the following.

Load the text file - I see that price and cost default to "Sum"

Add another (fact) table and a relationship is automatically determined between the 2 tables (BarID)

The aggregates of Price and Cost automatically changed to "Do Not Summarize"

 

So, based on my testing I would say that initial loads of all data default to an aggregate, unless a relationship is detected/applied that will drive a 1 to many relationship, and thus change the default behavoir based on a fact/dimension relationship...

It would be good to hear an official answer, but that is what I'm seeing.


Looking for more Power BI tips, tricks & tools? Check out PowerBI.tips the site I co-own with Mike Carlo. Also, if you are near SE WI? Join our PUG Milwaukee Brew City PUG

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4 REPLIES 4
Seth_C_Bauer
Community Champion
Community Champion

I'd be interested in what you pulled the data in from. I just tested all the ways I can think of from excel and it imported the whole number and currency formatted values in and automatically set them to default them to "Sum". My initial guess is that there is some formatting that is being done in your source that Power BI recognizes/doesn't recognize...


Looking for more Power BI tips, tricks & tools? Check out PowerBI.tips the site I co-own with Mike Carlo. Also, if you are near SE WI? Join our PUG Milwaukee Brew City PUG

The sources is a simple text file. 

 

"BarID","Flavor","Size","Price","Cost"
1,"Milk Chocolate","Small","1","0.4"
2,"Dark Chocolate","Small","1","0.4"
3,"Caramel","Small","1","0.4"
4,"Crisp","Small","1","0.4"
5,"Milk Chocolate","Large","2","0.8"
6,"Dark Chocolate","Large","2","0.8"
7,"Caramel","Large","2","0.8"
8,"Crisp","Large","2","0.8"

 

 

Interesting. Just to keep the conversation alive, I observe the following.

Load the text file - I see that price and cost default to "Sum"

Add another (fact) table and a relationship is automatically determined between the 2 tables (BarID)

The aggregates of Price and Cost automatically changed to "Do Not Summarize"

 

So, based on my testing I would say that initial loads of all data default to an aggregate, unless a relationship is detected/applied that will drive a 1 to many relationship, and thus change the default behavoir based on a fact/dimension relationship...

It would be good to hear an official answer, but that is what I'm seeing.


Looking for more Power BI tips, tricks & tools? Check out PowerBI.tips the site I co-own with Mike Carlo. Also, if you are near SE WI? Join our PUG Milwaukee Brew City PUG

Seem like a decent theory. Here is my query for my Bar table, in case you want to play.

 

let
Source = Csv.Document(File.Contents("C:\Users\Mark\OneDrive\Presentations\ClickClickWOW\Chocolate Sales\Bar.txt"),[Delimiter=",",Encoding=1252]),
#"Promoted Headers" = Table.PromoteHeaders(Source),
#"Changed Type" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(#"Promoted Headers",{{"BarID", Int64.Type}, {"Flavor", type text}, {"Size", type text}, {"Price", Int64.Type}, {"Cost", type number}}),
#"Renamed Columns" = Table.RenameColumns(#"Changed Type",{{"BarID", "Bar ID"}}),
#"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn(#"Renamed Columns", "Profit", each [Price]-[Cost]),
#"Changed Type1" = Table.TransformColumnTypes(#"Added Custom",{{"Profit", type number}})
in
#"Changed Type1"

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