PL-300 SUMMARIZECOLUMNS Practice Question
You are creating a Power BI report that uses a table named Orders with columns: OrderID, OrderDate, ShipDate, and Status. You need to create a calculated table that contains one row per month with the total number of orders shipped in that month. Which TWO steps should you take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates may think a separate date table is always required for time-based grouping in calculated tables. In this case, you can group directly by the month of ShipDate using functions like SUMMARIZECOLUMNS or GROUPBY without a date dimension.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use SUMMARIZECOLUMNS with 'Date'[Month] and COUNTROWS of Orders
To create a calculated table that shows total orders shipped per month, you can directly group by the month of ShipDate using SUMMARIZECOLUMNS. Since the Orders table already contains a ShipDate column, a separate date table is not required for this aggregation. Option C (creating a date table) is unnecessary here; you can simply extract the month from ShipDate within the grouping. Option D correctly uses SUMMARIZECOLUMNS with 'Date'[Month] and COUNTROWS of Orders. Note: If the 'Date' table is not already present, you would need to create it, but the question asks for steps to create a calculated table that contains one row per month with totals. The most direct step is to use SUMMARIZECOLUMNS with the month column from the Orders table (or a date table if available). However, among the given options, only D is a required step.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use CALENDARAUTO in a measure
Why it's wrong here
Using CALENDARAUTO in a measure is incorrect because the requirement is for a calculated table, not a measure.
- ✗
Use the GROUPBY function
Why it's wrong here
Using GROUPBY is possible but not listed as a step in the options; it could be used instead of SUMMARIZECOLUMNS, but the question asks which steps to take, and GROUPBY is not the most direct for this scenario.
- ✗
Create a date table using CALENDAR or CALENDARAUTO
Why it's wrong here
Creating a date table using CALENDAR or CALENDARAUTO is not required because you can directly group by the month of ShipDate from the Orders table. While a date table can be useful for other analyses, it is not a necessary step for this specific calculated table.
- ✓
Use SUMMARIZECOLUMNS with 'Date'[Month] and COUNTROWS of Orders
Why this is correct
Using SUMMARIZECOLUMNS with 'Date'[Month] and COUNTROWS of Orders correctly groups orders by month and counts them. This is the direct method to achieve the desired calculated table.
- ✗
Use the VALUES function to get unique months
Why it's wrong here
Using the VALUES function to get unique months is not sufficient because it only returns distinct month values without aggregation.
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