COUNT and DISTINCTCOUNT in Power BI - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

This table shows sales transactions with SalesID, CustomerID, and Amount.

Cell	Value
A1	SalesID
A2	101
A3	102
A4	103
A5	104
A6	105
B1	CustomerID
B2	C001
B3	C002
B4	C001
B5	C003
B6	C002
C1	Amount
C2	250
C3	450
C4	300
C5	150
C6	500

Formula Trace

COUNT(Sales[CustomerID]) and DISTINCTCOUNT(Sales[CustomerID])

Step 1: COUNT(Sales[CustomerID])

Step 2: DISTINCTCOUNT(Sales[CustomerID])

Cell Reference Map

    A        B          C
1 SalesID  CustomerID  Amount
2  101      C001       250
3  102      C002       450
4  103      C001       300
5  104      C003       150
6  105      C002       500

Arrows: COUNT and DISTINCTCOUNT use column B (CustomerID) values from rows 2 to 6.

The formula references the CustomerID column (cells B2 to B6) to count total and distinct customers.

Result

    A        B          C          D               E
1 SalesID  CustomerID  Amount    COUNT_CustID  DISTINCTCOUNT_CustID
2  101      C001       250          5                 3
3  102      C002       450
4  103      C001       300
5  104      C003       150
6  105      C002       500

Column D shows COUNT of CustomerID as 5 (all rows counted). Column E shows DISTINCTCOUNT as 3 (unique customers).

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does COUNT(Sales[CustomerID]) return in this data?

A 5

B 3

C 6

D 4

Key Result

COUNT counts all non-blank values; DISTINCTCOUNT counts unique values in a column.