A company has a fact table with sales data and multiple dimension tables. They want to create a measure that calculates the total sales amount for the current year, but the measure returns incorrect results when used in a visual with a date hierarchy. What is the most likely cause?
If the relationship is inactive, it must be activated using USERELATIONSHIP in the measure; otherwise, the measure will not filter correctly by date.
Why this answer
Option C is correct because if the relationship between the date table and the fact table is inactive, measures that rely on time intelligence functions (like TOTALYTD, SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR, or a simple SUM with date filtering) will not automatically propagate filters from the date hierarchy to the fact table. In Power BI, only one active relationship can exist between two tables; inactive relationships require explicit activation via USERELATIONSHIP in DAX. Without that, the measure ignores the date filter and returns incorrect or blank results.
Exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often assume any relationship between tables will automatically filter, but Power BI requires exactly one active relationship per pair of tables, and inactive relationships are ignored unless explicitly activated in DAX.
How to eliminate wrong answers
Option A is wrong because marking a table as a date table is not required for basic time intelligence; it only enables automatic date hierarchy creation and certain time intelligence functions to work correctly, but it does not cause incorrect results in a visual with a date hierarchy if the relationship is active. Option B is wrong because a snowflake schema does not inherently break time intelligence; it may affect performance or model complexity, but it does not cause a measure to return incorrect results due to filter propagation. Option D is wrong because bidirectional cross-filtering would actually strengthen filter propagation, not cause incorrect results; it might lead to ambiguity or unexpected filtering, but it would not cause the measure to ignore the date filter entirely.