Time intelligence › CALCULATE, PREVIOUSMONTH28 / 50

Progress is saved on this device. Sign in or sign up free to keep it in your account.

EasyFreeCALCULATEPREVIOUSMONTH

PREVIOUSMONTH: last month's overtime

Mr. Hendra, the head of HR, monitors overtime hours in every department. In the monthly meeting he wants to see the previous month's overtime as a comparison, without moving the month filter by hand. The measure [Total Overtime] (total overtime hours) already exists.

Task

Create the measure Lembur Bulan Lalu (last month's overtime) in the Attendance table: [Total Overtime] inside CALCULATE with the filter PREVIOUSMONTH ( Calendar[Date] ).
Visual: department (Departments[Department]) × month (Calendar[MonthName]).

MeasureLembur Bulan Laluin table Attendance

Required functionsCALCULATEPREVIOUSMONTH

Expected result

Loading the expected result…

Check answerCtrlShiftEnter
Run previewCtrlEnter
Previous / next exerciseAlt←→
Leave the workspaceEscTab

Hint 1
You need a function that returns every date of the month before the filtered month, then use it as a filter in CALCULATE.
Hint 2
PREVIOUSMONTH takes the date column of the Calendar table, not the Attendance[Date] column.
Hint 3
CALCULATE ( [Total Overtime], ___ ( Calendar[Date] ) )

Reveal them one at a time. The last hint nearly gives the answer away.

Give it a try first. The solution unlocks automatically after your first check.

Answer

Lembur Bulan Lalu

Lembur Bulan Lalu = CALCULATE ( [Total Overtime], PREVIOUSMONTH ( Calendar[Date] ) )

Explanation

In the February column, PREVIOUSMONTH returns the dates 1-31 January, so the Keuangan (finance) × February cell shows January's overtime: 23 hours. Also notice:

The January column disappears. The previous month (December 2024) does not exist in this model's Calendar table, so the result is BLANK in every row and the visual hides it.
An April column appears even though attendance only runs to March: April shows March's overtime (265 hours in total). That is correct behavior, because the measure is not blank in April.
The Total column is blank. For a full-year context, PREVIOUSMONTH takes the month before the first date (December 2024), which is not in the data.

PREVIOUSMONTH always returns one whole month, unlike DATEADD ( Calendar[Date], -1, MONTH ), which shifts exactly the dates in the context.

Data model: hr· table Attendance

Lembur Bulan Lalu =

Loading the DAX editor…

Write the DAX expression, then press Check answer.

Validation result