The superlative form with the word "the" is used to compare three or more. The comparative form is used to compare two people, ideas, or things. If you want to sum a column, or write DAX for SUM(table), what is sent by the complainer is identical.Adjectives and adverbs can be used to make comparisons. Instead of writing A measure, the UI sends the request straight to the compiler and the same process is executed. When you add a column into a values well in PBI, the UI understands what you want (sum is default, but it can be changed).
When you write a measure, you are writing some DAX code which is sent to a pre-compiling engine before being sent to the formula engine and storage engine for processing. Now, having said that, I believe it is useful to refer to implicit measures, as everyone seems to use that term. So the official line I was told by MS is there are no implicit measures in PBI, just implicit calculations. The difference is transparent to the user, but technically there is no implicit measure in PBI, but there is in Power Pivot. There is no actual measure generated, but the use of the Columns in this way causes the tool (PBI) to generate the aggregations automatically under the hood.
The software has a set of standard functions (sum, count, min, max, etc) that it allows the user to apply to a column when used in a visual (in some locations). PBI handles it differently, more like a regular pivot table (without Power Pivot). If you do this in PP, then migrate the model to PBI, you can actually see the implicit measure, DAX and all. In Power Pivot, there is actually a measure generated and stored in the Power Pivot model (implicit measure). There is a technical difference to the way Power Pivot handles this, and the way it is done in PBI. I have actually spoken to MS about this, Will Thompson and Kasper de Jonge, from memory. Yes, you can learn yourself using YouTube – there is a lot of great free content out there (like my video below), but you will learn better/faster if you take a structured course built by industry professionals. If you would like to learn more about Power BI from experts like me, Ken Puls, Miguel Escobar, and Reid Havens (all Microsoft MVPs), head over to and check out our training course catalogue.
You can see in the image below, the user can select a year from the top slicer and any other year from the bottom slicer, and the visual updates along with the title of the visual clearly communicating what is being displayed. Check out my video below to see how I did it. What is possible is endless, and the good news is that it is pretty simple to do this in Power BI.
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