Custom measures

Custom measures are new columns derived from other measures in the data model. A common use for custom measures is to calculate a third measure from two base measures. For example, to calculate revenue from quantity and unit price:

[Quantity]*[Unit_Price]

You can create custom measures that you define in the data model by applying a formula to one or more base measures from the same data grain.

Caution: 
Custom measures are not supported for Live Access sources.

The syntax for custom measure formulas is similar to BQL but not the same. The Custom Measures dialog adds the dimension and aggregation syntax behind the scenes.

Another use of a custom measure is to find the difference between two dates. The dates must be measures, not attributes. For example, to calculate the difference between the order and shipped date:

DATEDIFF(DAY,[OrderDate],[ShippedDate])

Custom formulas execute at the data tier (pre-aggregation) and the custom measures become available in the subject areas of Designer and Visualizer.

You can pass prompt filters and values to custom formulas.