If you are using Power Bi for tracking the condition of your business and crease out problems, you must have a thorough knowledge of the functions and capabilities of this reputed business intelligence platform. Power Bi is a powerful business intelligence software that helps businesses throw light on various niches of their business with the help of insightful reports on various aspects.
Here is a list of some power bi functions and statements that can help you elicit insightful ideas about your business.
Power Bi If Statement
IF is a popular function not just in Excel, but also in Power BI. You can manage new columns in the table using multiple conditions using IF Statements. In essence, IF helps to make logical functions that can perform conditional queries. You can use an IF statement as a DAX function and frame logical expression that can return a TRUE or FALSE value. You can also operate the IF function as a Power Query tool.
Benefits of using IF statement
- Using IF Statement in Power BI is similar to using the IF logical function in Excel. So, you are at ease with various functions in Excel, you can use the IF statement in Power BI easily. The arguments, syntax, application, etc. are the same for Excel and DAX.
- You can operate the Power BI IF Statement on multiple conditional statements.
- Make sure that all the characters in the syntax for the Power BI IF Statement are written in lowercase.
Times Comparison
Power Bi also features some time functions like DATEADD whereby you can input the number of intervals and select month/quarter/year to calculate sales at different periods. Indeed, comparing different periods in terms of sales, revenue, etc., can be very handy for business leaders and managers. DAX functions like times comparison can be helpful in this respect.
Without specifically storing the calculations in a separate sheet and referring back to them; Power BI’s Time Intelligence functions allow the users to do calculations that, can analyze company performance in real time. When one wants to measure trends in business KPIs across time, Power BI developers take the help of the time intelligence functions such as year-on-year, quarter-on-quarter, compared to last year, etc.
For instance, you choose to assess Year-to-Date (YTD) profitability and formulate a strategy, to close the gap compared to the annual target. An additional indicator to deliberate over is performing as compared to the previous year, month, or quarter. The developers can use this information to compare the current business performance to that of the same time last year.
In short, Time is an asset for businesses the same as resources, materials, and money. Businesses take the help of cumulative time-based calculations (Year-to-Date, Month-to-Date, or Quarter-to-Date) that are referred to as YTD, MTD, and QTD. They are supportive metrics to study the trends; or compare sales and financial performance. To say precisely, it could be a nightmare to calculate these metrics using pivot tables and formulas in, Microsoft Excel.
Other Popular Functions
DAX in Power Bi is littered with functions; you just need to select the right function to get the right result. You can also do powerful calculations using functions like quick measure. It runs a set of DAX commands and presents a set of results that you can use in your report. You don’t need to write the function it’s done by Power Bi based on your input in the dialog box. You can do different types of calculations and also modify the statements to fit your requirement.
Filter Functions
There is a range of filter functions in DAX. They also differ from corresponding functionalities in excel. ALL, ALLCROSSFILTERED, ALL EXCEPT, ALLSELECTED, EARLIER, etc are some of the most useful filter functions in FAX. Calculate is also a filter function. You can use calculate daxto return a single value. This function evaluates all the filter arguments independently from others. It makes a copy of the original filter context to prepare a new filter context. It performs context transition by using the current value of columns to provide a filter with a unique value for all the columns being iterated in the original row contexts.
To Conclude
If you are using Power Bi for your business intelligence functionalities, you need to have a very good hold over the DAX functions. Several DAX functions can help you come up with the right insight for a specific niche of your business. Also, you can use functions like Quick Measure for calculating various results. Using the right Power Bi guide can help you in getting the right results. Time intelligence calculations are some of the very needed functionalities in any data model. Year-to-date, same period last year, and times comparison of different periods are perhaps the most requested features of any BI solution. To conclude, Power BI offers a wide range of time intelligence functions that help with reporting the company’s performance. Simultaneously, Power BI enables you to build measures, as opposed to Excel’s cell-based calculations. Measures can immediately analyze any level of detail for, specific time computation.
