Newbie question: why can't you match up calculations between Excel & Power BI?

[dyingod]

Hello!

I don't want to turn this into a solution-based post. It's more of a general question really.

My company tasked me with investigating how we can switch all of our reporting from Excel to Power BI - which is super excciting and I'm loving learning this new tool.

But I find that calculating the same dataset via Power BI & Excel is 75% of the time not exactly matching what Excel tell me. Being new in data, I find that there must be a commonsense common knowledge explanation to this... like, different approaches to processing or clustering, or sampling?

I just wanted to get confirmation for the experts out there that this is a common thing to come across - if possible? I mean, no need to show you datasets or compare formulas or anything... I just wanted to know if this is "a thing" and it's normal and it's okay or if I'm just doing a really crap job of learning Power BI!

Thanks all! Much love!

Rafa

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @dyingod,

Excel has many powerful add-ins. 

1. Excel build-in functions;

2. Power Query (integrated in Excel 2016);

3. Power Pivot;

4. Power View.

Please reference: https://www.excelcampus.com/powerbi/powerbi-designer-overview/

Best Regards!

Dale

[vcastello]

Hi @dyingod

I don't get that kind of mismatch between Excel and Power BI results.

I do normally develope in Excel through PowerPivot and check whether it works or not.  And (at least for me) is faster and much easier to debug,.

Then, once I see everything is Ok (some times more than 70 measures) I import it in PBI Desktop to do the visuals.

HTH

Vicente

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

Generally this kind of issue surfaces when you are taking something like a pivot table in Excel and comparing it to a table or matrix visualization. See this post on how this situation can occur:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/DAX-Commands-and-Tips/Dealing-with-Measure-Totals/td-p/63376