Filter Context and Row Context in Power BI

There are mainly two types of evaluation context in DAX: Filter context and Row context.

Filter Context:

The filter context is the set of filters applied to the data model before the evaluation of a DAX expression starts. Filter Context always exist before a DAX expression been evaluated.

Some initial level filters context applied on Power BI report page in form of:-

1. Slicer
2. Filter through other Visual
3. In Matrix visual based on Row and column data fields
4. Power BI filters

Row Context:

A Row context is evaluated whenever an expression iterates over a table. Each individual row in a table has its own row context.

A row context exists in either a calculated column or an iterating DAX functions such as SUMX, AVERAGEX, FILTER & ADDCOLUMNS etc.

If you have created a calculated column, the row context consists of the values in each individual row and values in columns that are related to the current row.

Example:-

To calculate the Total Sales, multiply the Quantity by the Sales of each category in a newly created column named TotalSales.

As you are aware, a calculated column performs row-by-row calculations (row context), and you can view the results in the screenshot below.

Filter Context and Row Context in same DAX formula

Sample dataset as below:

Region	Category	Sales	Qty
A	A1	4	2
A	A2	4	3
A	A3	2	1
B	B1	5	3
B	B2	10	2
B	B3	5	1

Step-1: Create a measure and write DAX code below.

Total Sales =
SUMX( FILTER('Product', 'Product'[Region]="A") ,
'Product'[Sales] * 'Product'[Qty])

It is filtering the table for each row where Region is “A” and multiplying sales by quantity.




Step-2: Drag the new measure into the Table visual to see the final output. It will return the value only for Region ‘A’ with the specified condition.

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