Should measures be defined in the Tabular Model, or the Power BI report?

[Anonymous]

I have a design decision question. I'm working on a tabular model that has 15 facts, 100 dimensions, and 300 measures.

Most of the measures are simple ones like SUM(value).

Some on the new measures that I've been asked to create for some new reports are a lot more complex. For example, measures to looki across another table; measures to count the number of working days between different events; and applying filters to values because the report developers don't want to use filters in the reports.

My question is: how do you decide whether a measure should be defined in a tabular model or in a Power BI report?

My thinking is that any basic aggregation measure should go into the tabular model; any more complex measures belong in the Power BI report.

Any suggestions welcome.

[Anonymous]

If you like having problems and are looking forward to them, create measures all over the place 🙂

All measures SHOULD BE in one place. Now you know everything.

Best
D

[ibarrau]

Hi. This is a really good question and there is not a right answer. In my opinion you should keep all measures refered to the model in the tabular model. I mean that if you have a sales model and the measure is a basic concept about sales that will be necessary to any report they might build with it, then it should be there. If the requirement is an unique requirement of an specific report that won't add value to the model because you don't think anyone will use something like that to build a report (because it's to complex or just to specific), then it should be in power bi.

Hope this helps,