AVERAGEA DAX Function (Aggregation) Not recommended
Returns the average (arithmetic mean) of the values in a column. Handles text and non-numeric values.
Syntax
| Parameter | Attributes | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ColumnName |
A column that contains the values for which you want the average. |
Return values
Remarks
The AVERAGEA function takes a column and averages the numbers in it.
Whenever there are no rows to aggregate, the function returns a blank.
AVERAGEA manages a Boolean data type as an integer, where FALSE is 0 and TRUE is 1.
AVERAGEA always consider a string as 0, regardless of the content of the string.
It is useless to use this function in DAX with a string column because the result is always 0, resulting in a different result compared to the corresponding AVERAGEA function in Excel. In order to calculate the average of the numbers included in a column with a string data type, use AVERAGEX instead of AVERAGEA converting the column into a number using VALUE:
For arguments that are not Boolean, the AVERAGEA function internally executes AVERAGEX, without any performance difference.
The following AVERAGEA call:
AVERAGEA ( table[column] )
corresponds to the following AVERAGEX call:
AVERAGEX (
table,
table[column]
)
The result is blank in case there are no rows in the table with a non-blank value.
The behavior described above has an undocumented side effect caused by a bug that could be fixed in 2025 or later: if a measure is passed as an argument, it is evaluated by iterating the table where the measure is defined. We recommend not using this behavior, as it is misleading and breaks a calculation if the measure is moved to another table just to reorganize the presentation layer – it will also change once Microsoft fixes the bug.
Examples
-- The AVERAGEA syntax does not consider the content
-- of a string column (as Excel does)
AVERAGEA ( table[column] )
-- The following AVERAGEX syntax works correctly
-- when table[column] is a string
AVERAGEX (
table,
VALUE ( table[column] )
)
-- AVERAGE is the short version of AVERAGEX, when used with one column only
-- In DAX, there are no differences between AVERAGEA and AVERAGE
DEFINE
MEASURE Sales[AVG Quantity 1] = AVERAGE ( Sales[Quantity] )
MEASURE Sales[AVG Quantity 2] = AVERAGEX ( Sales, Sales[Quantity] )
MEASURE Sales[AVG Line Amount] =
AVERAGEX ( Sales, Sales[Quantity] * Sales[Net Price] )
EVALUATE
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS (
'Product'[Color],
"AVG Quantity 1", [AVG Quantity 1],
"AVG Quantity 2", [AVG Quantity 2],
"AVG Line Amount", [AVG Line Amount]
)
| Color | AVG Quantity 1 | AVG Quantity 2 | AVG Line Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver | 1.40 | 1.40 | 344.49 |
| Blue | 1.41 | 1.41 | 388.00 |
| White | 1.40 | 1.40 | 266.75 |
| Red | 1.39 | 1.39 | 191.33 |
| Black | 1.40 | 1.40 | 243.68 |
| Green | 1.40 | 1.40 | 652.64 |
| Orange | 1.40 | 1.40 | 543.64 |
| Pink | 1.40 | 1.40 | 235.54 |
| Yellow | 1.42 | 1.42 | 47.90 |
| Purple | 1.36 | 1.36 | 79.65 |
| Brown | 1.40 | 1.40 | 559.52 |
| Grey | 1.40 | 1.40 | 411.63 |
| Gold | 1.41 | 1.41 | 365.89 |
| Azure | 1.37 | 1.37 | 244.70 |
| Silver Grey | 1.42 | 1.42 | 550.98 |
| Transparent | 1.40 | 1.40 | 3.68 |
More examples available for the AVERAGEX function.
Related functions
Other related functions are:
Last update: Mar 11, 2025 » Contribute » Show contributors
Contributors: Alberto Ferrari, Marco Russo, Daniil Maslyuk
Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dax/averagea-function-dax