Tabular Model – Help – Can’t create a DAX Calculation Group

Problem Statement

While I was writing another data recipe, I ran into an issue. For some reason, the “Create Calculation Group” was not visible / enabled in Tabular Editor.

I tried to create a Calculation Group by right-clicking on the Table Folder –> Create but the option wasn’t available.

I tried an alternative way: going to the Model Section in the Tabular Editor toolbar. But unfortunately, the option to create a new Calculation Group was disabled.

Step-by-Step Recipe

Since I had no clue what the reason for this issue was, I started my research by just searching for possible causes. I tried a couple of things but nothing seemed to solve my issue. It was only the day after that an idea came into my mind.

I was pretty convinced that it should be a model-specific setting that was causing the issue. So I started to dig into my Tabular Model properties.

As soon as I opened the first section, which contains the Database properties, I realized that the Compatibility Level of my Database was causing the issue.

You can find a full overview of Compatibility Levels by using the following URL: Compatibility level for tabular models in Analysis Services | Microsoft Learn

As soon as I used the URL that I mentioned above, I also found a section about Calculation Groups, which you can find here: Calculation groups in Analysis Services tabular models | Microsoft Learn

Luckily, the documentation supported my assumption. Calculation Groups are only supported from Compatibility Level 1500 and above. So I switched to Compatibility Level of my Tabular model to 1500.

Lesson Learned

When starting the investigation for this kind of issue it is a good idea to start from the official documentation on Microsoft Learn. Which I didn’t obviously. In my defense, while running into this issue, I was traveling by plane without an internet connection.

If you can’t find useful information with your search criteria, in my case I was looking for “Can’t create a calculation group”, search for the product feature, and not the issue.

Enjoy your cooking adventure!
Bon appétit!