LOOKUPVALUE not working without relationship

[IvanS]

Hi guys,

I would need your help with LOOKUPVALUE function. I have pretty complex model so I cannot have active relationships between tables DIM_Products and DIM_Locations.

This is how the tables look:

DIM_Products

- Product ID

- Location ID

DIM_Locations

- Location ID

- Location Name

I need to populate Location Name into DIM_Products table. I tried to duplicate table and create new DIM_Location to Product and create relationships - then both RELATED and LOOKUPVALUE functions worked well.

LOOKUPVALUE('DIM_Locations to Products'[Location Name], 'DIM_Locations to Products'[Location_Id], DIM_Products[Location_Id])

RELATED('DIM_Locations to Products'[Location Name])

Due to size of model, I cannot accept to create such dummy tables, and therefore I removed duplicated table and remove relationship (respectively to keep inactive relationship) and rewrite the function as:

LOOKUPVALUE('DIM_Locations'[Location Name], 'DIM_Locations'[Location_Id], DIM_Products[Location_Id])

However this function is retrieving blanks values. As far as I know, LOOKUPVALUE does not require to have relationship between tables - any ideas what can be the root cause here?

Thank you
IvanS

[bcdobbs · Accepted solution]

Are the id columns the same data type in both tables?

[IvanS]

Thanks a lot! The I change type to number and then back to text and suddenly it is working! 🙂

[speedramps]

Hi Ivan

Your data model is wrong

Dimension should not be referencing Dimension

Try this classic star schema ...

DIM_Products

- Product ID

- Product Name
- Product Category

- Product Brand

DIM_Locations

- Location ID

- Location Name
- Location Country


Fact_Stock

- Product ID

- Location ID

- Qty

Then addrelationships

DIM_Products[Product ID] 1:M Fact_Stock[Product ID]
DIM_Locations[Location ID] 1:M Fact_Stock[Location ID]

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[IvanS]

Hi @speedramps ,

this model is pretty complicated as I have FACT_Tasks with "RelatedToID" field. And under this field it can be DIM_Locations, DIM_Deals and DIM_Products. And all of the DIM tables have Location name. And I need to get that into FACT_Tasks.

However, the question is still why LOOKUPVALUE is not able to find matching location without having active relationship.