Error: this could be because there is missing intermediate data to connect the two columns

[billzhang1123]

I have two tables. they both have a column with the same name. And the values in these two columns are the same. When I tried to link these two columns together I got an error: this could be because there is missing intermediate data to connect the two columns in the relationship view.

Any reason?

[varakcheev]

One of the columns participating in relationship must have unique values and no nulls/blanks. You can create the lookup table: 
1. Go to the "Edit Queries", duplicate one of your tables, rename it to "MyLookup" and delete all column except key/id column.
2  Remove the duplicate values and filter out the nulls...
3. Create 2 relationships - from each original table to the new lookup table.

[adrien5555]

@varakcheev Thanks for the filtering tip. I had created an Excel file filled with dates. For no reason, it had *nulls* in it, once imported in PBI, and creating a relationship resulted in the error mentioned in this thread's title. 

After filtering the nulls, no more error.

[Anonymous]

Today I've got the same error:

I've got a table with hundred of customer names without a customer id and a fact table with the same name.

I've grouped the dimension table by the name and i got the error when I created the relationship.

The reason for the issue was, that the customer names: e.g. Test Company and test company

Power Query is case sensitive and Power Pivot is not. So I make the values in Power Query to uppercase (in fact and dim table). So it works.

Never use text values for key lookups 😉

[SueJB]

This answer seems to depend on each table having a single unique key. My data is related by a set of columns (Segment, Product, Month). How can I implement this relationship?

[ALeef]

First thing you should check is if the data types match.  If they do, then you need to make sure that one has distinct values that you can key off of.  If you give a little more information, data structure etc.. we might be able to help more.

[sgmc1009]

Had the same issue and found that it was because both columns had duplicates. One of the two columns needs to contain only unique data.

[Ray42]

Isnt the point of connecting the two columns to create a relationship between the two tables?  I'd expect that the only records of value are the duplicates?  Confused - please advise

[sameerdj]

Hello,

I have getting same error, checked the data type is same. Infact vlookup in excel works but in power BI i get error saying missing intermediate data.

Please help