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Calculating the sum in Power BI involves using the “SUM” function to add up the values in a column or measure. For example, if we have a sales data set with columns for product name and sales amount, we can use the “SUM” function to calculate the total sales for all products. This can be done by selecting the “SUM” function from the “Add Column” tab, choosing the sales amount column as the input, and then creating a new column with the sum of all the sales amounts. This will provide us with a single value representing the total sales for the specified time period or category.
You can use the following syntax in DAX to calculate the sum of values in a column:
Sum Points = SUM('my_data'[Points])
This particular example creates a new measure named Sum Points that calculates the sum of values in the Points column of the table named my_data.
The following example shows how to calculate the sum of values in a column in Power BI in practice.
Example: How to Calculate Sum in Power BI
Suppose we have the following table in Power BI named my_data that contains information about points scored by basketball players on various teams:
Suppose we would like to calculate the sum of values in the Points column.
To do so, click the Table tools tab along the top ribbon, then click the New measure icon:
Then type in the following formula into the formula bar:
Sum Points = SUM('my_data'[Points])
This will create a new measure named Sum Points that contains the sum of values in the Points column of the table:
If we’d like, we can display this value by going to the Report View in Power BI, then by clicking the Card icon under the Visualizations tab, then by dragging the Sum Points measure under the Fields label:
This will produce the following card that displays the sum of values in the Points column of the table:
We can see that the sum of all values in the Points column is 219.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Power BI: