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Asked: 2026-06-16T03:46:33+00:00

I’ve been using PowerPivot a lot over the last year, but only minimally dipping

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I’ve been using PowerPivot a lot over the last year, but only minimally dipping into DAX (for simple RELATED and DISTINCTCOUNT measures). I often make my pivots, then copy and paste them (as values) into another worksheet where I add some computed columns and formatting. I’d like to avoid the extra work where possible (as this can be done over and over and over again), but I’m having a difficult time wrapping my head around how to create the measures to make these “custom columns” work directly through PowerPivot.

I’ve read through a number of articles and DAX tutorials, but I can’t figure out the magic behind combining CALCULATE, FILTER, COUNTROWS, etc for my particular purpose, and PD time at work has just run out. Any help would be extremely appreciated!

So here is what I currently have – a simple PowerPivot PivotTable from a SQL Server import:

 -------------------------------------
|       | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 |
|       |----|----|---------|----|----|
| Course|Pass|Fail|Pass|Fail|Pass|Fail|
|-------|----|----|----|----|----|----|
|MAT-121|  11|   2|  22|    |  21|   3|
|MAT-122|  13|   3|  19|    |  15|   3|
|MAT-123|    |    |  14|    |  15|   6|
|MAT-127|   6|   3|  14|    |  13|   2|
|MAT-151|    |    |  23|   1|  23|   1|
|MAT-152|  12|    |  25|   2|  25|   4|
 -------------------------------------
  1. Column labels
    • ACA_YEAR
    • PASS_FLAG
  2. Row labels
    • COURSE_NAME
  3. Values
    • COUNTA(REG_ID)

I would like to add a “Percent Fail” column, calculated as “=Fail/(Pass+Fail)”.

 -------------------------------------------------------
|       |   2009/10     |   2010/11     |   2011/12     |
|       |---------------|---------------|---------------|
| Course|Pass|Fail|%Fail|Pass|Fail|%Fail|Pass|Fail|%Fail|
|-------|----|----|-----|----|----|-----|----|----|-----|
|MAT-121|  11|   2|  15%|  22|    |   0%|  21|   3|  13%|
|MAT-122|  13|   3|  23%|  19|    |   0%|  15|   3|  17%|
|MAT-123|    |    |     |  14|    |     |  15|   6|  29%|
|MAT-127|   6|   3|  33%|  14|    |   0%|  13|   2|  13%|
|MAT-151|    |    |     |  23|   1|  42%|  23|   1|   4%|
|MAT-152|  12|    |   0%|  25|   2|   7%|  25|   4|  14%|
 -------------------------------------------------------

Can I somehow override a subtotal column? Do I need to create and combine a few different measures?

Many thanks for any suggestions you may have, or required reading you can point me to!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Spudsy,

    Lets assume that your values measure is called [theCount] and that the table that the column that the REG_ID is in is called ‘table’. What you need to do is create 3 measures; the first two based on [theCount] to give the count of pass and fail and the 3rd to divide the [Fail] by the total count.

    [Fail]=Calculate([theCount],table[REG_ID]=”Fail”)

    [Pass]=Calculate([theCount],table[REG_ID]=”Pass”)

    [% Fail]=[Fail] / [thecount]

    Remove the pass_flag from the pivot then drag the three measures into the values.

    There are a bunch of ways to do this but this is a simple way. The book you need is dax by rob collie

    Your difficulty in making progress with DAX may be related to your comments referencing “custom columns”! Although that’s how they come out you can’t have that excel type mentality as its more table/SQL based.

    Hope this helps.
    Jacob

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