PREVIOUSYEAR DAX Function (Time Intelligence)  Context Transition

Returns a previous year.

Syntax

PREVIOUSYEAR ( <Dates> [, <YearEndDate>] )
Parameter Attributes Description
Dates

The name of a column containing dates or a one column table containing dates.

YearEndDate Optional

End of year date.

Return values

Table A table with a single column.

A table containing a single column of date values.

Notes

In order to use any time intelligence calculation, you need a well-formed date table. The Date table must satisfy the following requirements:

  • All dates need to be present for the years required. The Date table must always start on January 1 and end on December 31, including all the days in this range. If the report only references fiscal years, then the date table must include all the dates from the first to the last day of a fiscal year. For example, if the fiscal year 2008 starts on July 1, 2007, then the Date table must include all the days from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008.
  • There needs to be a column with a DateTime or Date data type containing unique values. This column is usually called Date. Even though the Date column is often used to define relationships with other tables, this is not required. Still, the Date column must contain unique values and should be referenced by the Mark as Date Table feature. In case the column also contains a time part, no time should be used – for example, the time should always be 12:00 am.
  • The Date table must be marked as a date table in the model, in case the relationship between the Date table and any other table is not based on the Date.
The result of time intelligence functions has the same data lineage as the date column or table provided as an argument.

Remarks

The result includes all the days in the previous year considering the first day in the dates argument.

The dates argument can be any of the following:

  • A reference to a date/time column. Only in this case a context transition applies because the column reference is replaced by
  • A table expression that returns a single column of date/time values.
  • A Boolean expression that defines a single-column table of date/time values.

The result table includes only dates that exist in the dates column.

Internally, PREVIOUSYEAR corresponds to the following call of PARALLELPERIOD:

PARALLELPERIOD ( FIRSTDATE ( <Dates> ), -1, YEAR )
» 1 related article
» 7 related functions

Examples

--  PREVIOUSYEAR returns the full year before the first day in the selection
EVALUATE
CALCULATETABLE (
    PREVIOUSYEAR ( 'Date'[Date] ),   
    'Date'[Date] >= DATE ( 2008, 08, 15 ) &&
    'Date'[Date] <= DATE ( 2008, 08, 20 ) 
)
ORDER BY [Date] ASC
Date
2007-01-01
2007-01-02
2007-12-30
2007-12-31
--  All time intelligence function are designed to return a table
--  to be easily used in CALCULATE as a filter.
EVALUATE
    VAR StartDate = DATE ( 2008, 08, 15 )
    VAR EndDate   = DATE ( 2008, 08, 20 )
RETURN
CALCULATETABLE (
    ROW (
        "Selection",
            [Sales Amount],
        "Previous Year",
            CALCULATE (
                [Sales Amount],
                PREVIOUSYEAR ( 'Date'[Date] ) -- 2007-01-01 : 2007-12-31
            )
    ),
    'Date'[Date] >= StartDate 
        && 'Date'[Date] <= EndDate
)

Selection Previous Year
91,636.30 11,309,946.12
--  The query returns the current sales, the sales in the previous and next month
--  and the sales in the full previous year
DEFINE
    MEASURE Sales[Sales YTD] =
        CALCULATE ( [Sales Amount], DATESYTD ( 'Date'[Date] ) )
    MEASURE Sales[Sales Prev Year] =
        CALCULATE ( [Sales Amount], PREVIOUSYEAR ( 'Date'[Date] ) )
EVALUATE
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS ( 
    'Date'[Month], 'Date'[Month Number],
    TREATAS ( { "CY 2009" }, 'Date'[Calendar Year] ),
    "Current Sales", [Sales Amount],
    "Sales YTD", [Sales YTD],
    "Sales Prev Year", [Sales Prev Year],
    "YTD %", DIVIDE ( [Sales YTD], [Sales Prev Year] )
)
ORDER BY
    [Month Number]
Month Month Number Current Sales Sales YTD Sales Prev Year YTD %
January 1 580,901.05 580,901.05 9,927,582.99 5.85%
February 2 622,581.14 1,203,482.19 9,927,582.99 12.12%
March 3 496,137.87 1,699,620.05 9,927,582.99 17.12%
April 4 678,893.22 2,378,513.27 9,927,582.99 23.96%
May 5 1,067,165.23 3,445,678.50 9,927,582.99 34.71%
June 6 872,586.20 4,318,264.70 9,927,582.99 43.50%
July 7 1,068,396.58 5,386,661.27 9,927,582.99 54.26%
August 8 835,707.46 6,222,368.73 9,927,582.99 62.68%
September 9 709,610.40 6,931,979.13 9,927,582.99 69.83%
October 10 806,738.22 7,738,717.35 9,927,582.99 77.95%
November 11 868,164.01 8,606,881.36 9,927,582.99 86.70%
December 12 746,933.50 9,353,814.87 9,927,582.99 94.22%

Related articles

Learn more about PREVIOUSYEAR in the following articles:

Related functions

Other related functions are:

Last update: Mar 13, 2024   » Contribute   » Show contributors

Contributors: Alberto Ferrari, Marco Russo

Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dax/previousyear-function-dax

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Context Transition

This function performs a Context Transition if called in a Row Context. Click to read more.

Row Context

This expression is executed in a Row Context. Click to read more.

Iterator

Not recommended

The use of this function is not recommended. See Remarks and Related functions for alternatives.

Not recommended

The use of this parameter is not recommended.

Deprecated

This function is deprecated. Jump to the Alternatives section to see the function to use.

Volatile

A volatile function may return a different result every time you call it, even if you provide the same arguments. Click to read more.

Deprecated

This parameter is deprecated and its use is not recommended.

DirectQuery compatibility

Limitations are placed on DAX expressions allowed in measures and calculated columns.
The state below shows the DirectQuery compatibility of the DAX function.

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