Filter by last not blank date in Power BI

Question

I have data from multiple countries on a monthly basis. Since the updates are not regular, I want to set up filter to visuals, so they would show the last month for which I have data from all the countries. I have data from each country loaded into a separate dataset, which then are merged into one big. Is there an easy way to place such filter? I managed to use "LASTDATE" function in each of country sets to find which date is last, but if I try to filter with that measure, I simply get nothing in a result. Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, this feels a little clunky to me but I believe it will work for you. There are two steps. The first is to create a summary table that reads through your data and counts the number of distinct countries that you have in each month. This will be a new table in your model, so go into the modeling tab, click 'New Table' and add this DAX. Obviously, correct for your table and column names.

SUMMARIZED_ROWS = SUMMARIZE(
    'Table1'
    ,Table1[Month]
    ,"CountOfCountries"
    ,DISTINCTCOUNT(Table1[Country])
)

Now add a measure to the table (or anywhere) like this:

MonthWithMostCountries = CALCULATE(
    LASTNONBLANK(SUMMARIZED_ROWS[Month], 1 )
    , FILTER(SUMMARIZED_ROWS, SUMMARIZED_ROWS[CountOfCountries] =  MAX(SUMMARIZED_ROWS[CountOfCountries]) )  )

This is going to give you the month where you have the most distinct countries in your data. You'll want to look at it in a card or similarly isolated visual as it is a measure and can be affected by filter context.

So, on the left is my mock data - 3 countries, 3 months each with a 1 month stagger. On the right you see the result of the Summarize table. Then the measure showing the final result.

Hope it helps.