Filter context concept in Power BI - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

Sales data for products with their categories and sales amounts.

Cell	Value
A1	Product
B1	Category
C1	Sales
A2	Apple
B2	Fruit
C2	100
A3	Banana
B3	Fruit
C3	150
A4	Carrot
B4	Vegetable
C4	200
A5	Broccoli
B5	Vegetable
C5	120

Formula Trace

CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales]), Sales[Category] = "Fruit")

Step 1: Sales[Category] = "Fruit"

Step 2: SUM(Sales[Sales]) over filtered rows

Step 3: CALCULATE(...) returns sum with filter applied

Cell Reference Map

    A        B          C
1 Product  Category   Sales
2 Apple    Fruit      100
3 Banana   Fruit      150
4 Carrot   Vegetable  200
5 Broccoli Vegetable  120

Filter applied on column B (Category) for 'Fruit' rows (A2,B2,C2 and A3,B3,C3).

The formula filters rows where Category equals 'Fruit' and sums the Sales column for those rows.

Result

    D
1 Filtered Sales
2 250

Cell D2 shows the total sales for products in the 'Fruit' category.

The result 250 is the sum of sales for Apple and Banana, the filtered products.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the filter context do in this formula?

A Selects only rows where Category is 'Fruit'.

B Sums all sales without filtering.

C Filters sales greater than 200.

D Changes product names to uppercase.

Key Result

CALCULATE applies filter context to modify which rows are included before aggregation.