The Life Starter
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Course Library · Lesson 4 of 6
Digital · Guided lesson

Create checked measures

About 36 minutes · 6 reading + 30 practice and checks
Time includes reading, practice, and questions. Extra videos or further study are optional.
See this course’s project requirements

A locally saved interactive Power BI report with checked measures, site filters, source CSVs and a tested refresh handoff.

Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.

What to include

  • Two typed source queries and baseline counts.
  • Inspected one-to-many relationship.
  • Three explicit checked measures.
  • Site slicer, cards, verification table and dated chart.
  • Local report, source files and refresh handoff.

Review and revise

Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.

  • Rows and measures reconcile.
  • Site filters affect the intended data.
  • Visual labels and date ordering are clear.
  • Refresh and local handoff are reproducible.
Open the full course project
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Before you begin

The idea in everyday life

Build a local interactive report for fictional workshop attendance and capacity.

The idea

A measure calculates under the current filter context.

Follow along

Create checked measures — guided practice

Define totals and a ratio that respond correctly to filters.

Use free Power BI Desktop on a supported 64-bit Windows computer; check the linked current system requirements and installation policy. No cloud sign-in, subscription or publishing is needed. Save sessions.csv and sites.csv in one stable practice folder. Sessions are S1 N Jan 15 8/10; S2 S Jan 15 6/10; S3 N Feb 15 7/10; S4 S Feb 15 5/10; S5 N Mar 15 4/10; S6 S Mar 15 9/10 (all dates 2026; values attended/capacity). Sites: N=North, S=South. Follow lessons cumulatively and save report.pbix locally. Menu/pane labels can vary slightly with monthly releases; use the named feature.

  1. 1. Create attendance

    Right-click Sessions in the Data/Fields pane and choose New measure. Enter the formula.

    Attendance = SUM(Sessions[attended])

    You should see: A measure named Attendance is available.

    An explicit measure makes the aggregation clear.

  2. 2. Create total capacity

    Create the second measure.

    TotalCapacity = SUM(Sessions[capacity])

    You should see: Unfiltered TotalCapacity is 60.

    The denominator needs the same included scope.

  3. 3. Create fill rate

    Create FillRate and format it as Percentage with one decimal place.

    FillRate = DIVIDE([Attendance], [TotalCapacity])

    You should see: Unfiltered FillRate is 65.0%.

    Divide summed attendance by summed capacity.

  4. 4. Check three cards

    Add Card visuals for Attendance, TotalCapacity and FillRate with no filters.

    You should see: 39,60,65.0%.

    Verify numerical meaning before adding decoration.

Now change one thing

Attendance is 24 and total capacity is 40. Enter fill rate as a whole percent.

Your work

What to finish

Three named measures with baseline reconciliation.

Common mistake

Watch for this

Averaging row percentages when capacities differ instead of using a ratio of totals.

How can I tell I understand it?

Complete the changed case, explain your result, and pass the three application checks.

Try 3 questions

Quick knowledge check

Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.

Not yet passed

You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.

1Session rates are 1/2 and 9/18. Their combined fill rate is?
2One session is 1/2 full and another 9/10 full. What is the combined rate rounded to one decimal?
3A filter selects one site. What should both parts of its FillRate measure reflect?
0 of 3 answeredApply the lesson to a short question, then review the explanation.
4
Finish this lesson

Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.

Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.

Go to the knowledge check
Optional course overview video · same video as Lesson 1
Kevin StratvertHow to use Microsoft Power BI - Tutorial for BeginnersYouTube
Optional course overview

How to use Microsoft Power BI - Tutorial for Beginners

From Kevin Stratvert. Watch here or open it on YouTube .

Optional course overview. Follow the written steps below at your own pace.
Tools, templates, and lesson sources

Tools and templates

Tools open in a new tab so you can keep your place here.

Sources and further reading

Explore the references behind this lesson.

Microsoft: Create your own measures
Source & access notes · checked 2026-09-12

Opened and inspected on 2026-09-12: New measure workflow, DAX and filter context.

Access: Free public web page; no paid enrollment required.

Reuse: Public reference; link only. LifeStarter prose, exercises and files are independently authored.

Microsoft: Column and measure references in DAX
Source & access notes · checked 2026-09-12

Opened and inspected on 2026-09-12: Measure/column naming separation and unqualified measure references.

Access: Free public web page; no paid enrollment required.

Reuse: Public reference; link only. LifeStarter prose, exercises and files are independently authored.

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