How to express Today "one month ago"

[webportal]

Hello,

I want to create a card with last month's sales.

For that, I need a measure that is capable of expressing today "one month ago"

For example, this month's sales is:

This month sales = VAR ThisMonth = MONTH(TODAY()) RETURN CALCULATE('orders'[SalesAmount];'calendar'[month_number]=ThisMonth; 'calendar'[year]=2017)

All time intelligence functions seem to be good to handle columns of date but not scalar values like this case is. 

Also, because I'm using a card, there's no "filter context", therefore, I need a volatile function like TODAY.

Thanks!

[r2db2]

I got round this issue creating two addtonal column:

1st MonthsOpened = DATEDIFF(TABLE[Date],today(),MONTH)

2nd ThisReportMonth = IF(TABLE[MonthsOpened]=1,1,0)

I was after a record count so just returned a 1, but you could always display the sales value or a zero on the row then sum the "ThisReportMonth" column.

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @webportal,

Based on my test, measure similar to below could return last month sales dynamically.

Last month sales =
VAR LMonth =
    MONTH ( TODAY () ) - 1
RETURN
    CALCULATE (
        SUM ( 'Previous month sales'[Sales] ),
        MONTH ( 'calendar'[Date] ) = LMonth,
        YEAR ( 'calendar'[Date] ) = 2017
    )

So, what is your concern? As you mentioned, almost time intelligence functions supports date column rather than scalar values like Today(). This is by design, but you could use above workaround.

Best regards,

Yuliana Gu

[webportal]

Hello,

Thanks, will it also work if today is in January?

What will LMonth be then?

[v-yulgu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @webportal,

To consider the month January, how about try this:

Last month sales =
VAR LMonth =
    IF ( MONTH ( TODAY () ) = 1, 12, MONTH ( TODAY () ) - 1 )
VAR YearNum =
    IF ( MONTH ( TODAY () ) = 1, YEAR ( TODAY () ) - 1, YEAR ( TODAY () ) )
RETURN
    CALCULATE (
        SUM ( 'Previous month sales'[Sales] ),
        MONTH ( 'calendar'[Date] ) = LMonth,
        YEAR ( 'calendar'[Date] ) = YearNum
    )

Regards,

Yuliana Gu

[webportal]

Hi @v-yulgu-msft

Thank you so much for your assistance.

Happy New Year!

[Ashish_Mathur]

Hi,

Even if you do not have a Date column in your base data but simple Month and year columns, we can always create a date column from these 2 columns.  This will then allow us to use the Date/Time Intelligence functions.

[webportal]

I found out this works:

Last month sales = VAR LastMonth = MONTH(TODAY()-DAY(TODAY()) RETURN CALCULATE('orders'[SalesAmount];'calendar'[month_number]=LastMonth; 'calendar'[year]=2017)

Although probably it's not the most correct syntax..