Join us at FabCon Atlanta from March 16 - 20, 2026, for the ultimate Fabric, Power BI, AI and SQL community-led event. Save $200 with code FABCOMM.
Register now!Vote for your favorite vizzies from the Power BI Dataviz World Championship submissions. Vote now!
I would like to dynamically evaluate hours or minutes from durations. I have successfully used a 'dictionary' table to describe data types in a master data table, e.g.
| Column Name | Type | Units |
| Start Date | type date | |
| Temperature | type number | °C |
| Pressure | type number | barg |
| Long Duration | type duration | hours |
| Short Duration | type duration | minutes |
| Comments | type text |
I can then use
#"Added Evalaution" = Table.AddColumn(<Dictionary>, "Evaluate", each Expression.Evaluate(Record.Field(_, "Type")))
and
#"List of Transforms" = Table.ToRows(#"Added Evaluation")
to generate a list that can then be passed to
#"Changed Types" = Table.TransformColumns(<Master>, #"List of Transforms")This will dynamically change the column types based on the 'Type' column in the dictionary.
What I would now like to do is dynamically take the 'hours' and 'minutes' from the units column (converted to 'Duration.TotalHours' and 'Duration.TotalMinutes' as strings) and use them as a transform function. I have tried
#"Added Duration Evaluation" = Table.AddColumn(#"Previous Step", "Duration", each Expression.Evaluate(Record.Field(_, "Units")))
z
But I get the error "Expression.Error: [1,1-1,20] The name 'Duration.TotalHours' doesn't exist in the current context".
Specifically, I need this to run in the service, not desktop, and I want to chart the numbers with human-readable values so I can't just use duration data types.
Edit 1: I know I can brute force it by multiplying my duration (which is essentially a fraction of a day) by either 24 for hours or 24*60 for minutes but I think I'd have to stuff this in a loop of columns and it's not very elegant
Edit 2: Not perfect but I have taken the approach described in Power Query: Data Transformation of Dynamic Columns
// Transform those columns flagged as hours to Duration.TotalHours
Hours = Table.TransformColumns (
#"Changed Types",
List.Transform (
Table.SelectRows(<dictionary>, each [Units] = "hours")[Column Name],
each {_, Duration.TotalHours, type number}
)
)
And of course, the same for [Units] = "minutes" to Duration.TotalMinutes
But I get the error "Expression.Error: [1,1-1,20] The name 'Duration.TotalHours' doesn't exist in the current context".
Add it to the context as requested. There is an additional parameter to Expression.Evaluate().
Expression.Evaluate(Record.Field(_, "Units",[Duration.TotalHours=Duration.TotalHours])
Vote for your favorite vizzies from the Power BI World Championship submissions!
If you love stickers, then you will definitely want to check out our Community Sticker Challenge!
Check out the January 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 11 | |
| 7 | |
| 6 | |
| 6 | |
| 6 |