Calculated tables in Power BI - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Calculated tables

Business Question

How can we create a new table that summarizes total sales by product category using calculated tables in Power BI?

Sample Data: Sales Transactions

TransactionID	Product	Category	Quantity	UnitPrice	SalesAmount
1	Notebook	Stationery	2	3	6
2	Pen	Stationery	5	1	5
3	Chair	Furniture	1	50	50
4	Desk	Furniture	1	150	150
5	Stapler	Stationery	1	7	7
6	Monitor	Electronics	2	120	240
7	Keyboard	Electronics	3	30	90

Dashboard Components

• Calculated Table: CategorySales = SUMMARIZE(Sales, Sales[Category], "Total Sales", SUM(Sales[SalesAmount]))
  This creates a new table summarizing total sales by category.
• Table Visual: Displays CategorySales with columns Category and Total Sales.
  Shows total sales per category:
  
  • Stationery: 18
  • Furniture: 200
  • Electronics: 330
• KPI Card: Total Sales Overall = SUM(Sales[SalesAmount])
  Shows total sales across all categories: 588
• Bar Chart: Categories on X-axis, Total Sales on Y-axis from CategorySales.
  Visualizes sales comparison by category.

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+--------------------+
|      KPI Card        |    Bar Chart       |
|  Total Sales Overall |  Sales by Category |
+----------------------+--------------------+
|                Table Visual (CategorySales)           |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

Adding a slicer for Category filters both the Table Visual and Bar Chart to show data only for the selected category. The KPI Card updates to show total sales for the selected category as well.

Self Check

If you add a filter to select only the Furniture category, which components update and what values do they show?

• Table Visual: Shows one row: Furniture with Total Sales = 200
• Bar Chart: Shows only Furniture bar with value 200
• KPI Card: Shows Total Sales Overall = 200

Key Result

Dashboard showing total sales by product category using a calculated table with interactive filtering.