How to Get Current Year in Power BI

Building a Power BI report that automatically updates to show the current year's data is an essential skill for creating relevant, up-to-date dashboards. Whether you're making a year-to-date (YTD) sales report or comparing current performance to previous years, you need a dynamic way to identify the current year. This article will show you exactly how to do that using a few simple DAX functions, walking through the most practical methods for creating measures and calculated columns.

Why You Need the Current Year in Power BI

Hardcoding years into your reports is a recipe for endless maintenance. Every January 1st, you'd have to go back and update every filter, measure, and visualization. By dynamically referencing the current year, your reports stay fresh and accurate without any manual intervention. Here are a few common situations where this is incredibly useful:

• Filtering visuals: Automatically show only the data from the current year in charts and tables.
• Year-to-Date (YTD) calculations: Build measures that sum up performance from the beginning of the year to the current date.
• Last Year vs. Current Year analysis: Create comparison metrics like "Sales vs. Same Period Last Year" that adjust automatically.
• Dynamic report titles: Make your report titles update automatically, such as changing "2023 Performance Review" to "2024 Performance Review" without you doing a thing.

Luckily, Power BI’s formula language, DAX (Data Analysis Expressions), gives us simple tools to make this happen.

The Core Functions: TODAY() and YEAR()

To get the current year, you only need two foundational DAX functions. Understanding these is the first step.

The Prerequisites: Mastering the Basics of DAX

DAX Function #1 - TODAY(): Returning Today's Date

The TODAY() function is as simple as it sounds. It returns the current date based on your system’s clock if you're in Power BI Desktop, or the server's time (UTC) if your report is published to the Power BI Service. It takes no arguments.

TODAY() 
-- Returns the current date, e.g., 10/26/2024

Note: There's also a function called NOW(), which returns the current date and time. For most reporting needs, TODAY() is all you need, as you're typically analyzing data at the daily level, not by the second.

DAX Function #2 - YEAR(): Extracting the Year

As its name suggests, the purpose of the YEAR() function is to pull the year out of a date value. It takes a single argument, which is a valid date. In our example, this date comes from the TODAY() function, which returns today's current date.

YEAR(<date>)
-- Example: YEAR("10/26/2024") returns 2024

By combining these two functions, we have everything we need to create a dynamic reference to the current year.

Method 1: Create a Measure for the Current Year

Creating a measure is the most flexible and common way to reference the current year. A measure is a dynamic calculation that runs whenever you use it in a visual. This means it's not stored in your data model, making your file size smaller, and it always calculates the correct year at runtime.

When Would I Want to Use This Method?

You'd create a measure, such as in the example below, if you want to use this in a filter or another calculation — for example, a formula meant to measure year-to-date sales figures.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. On the Home ribbon in Power BI Desktop, click on New Measure.
2. In the formula bar that appears, enter the following DAX expression:

Current Year = YEAR(TODAY())

1. Press Enter to save the measure. You will now see 'Current Year' in your Fields pane on the right.

That's it! You now have a measure that will always return the number of the current year (e.g., 2024).

Using Your New Measure

Now, let's put it to work. Imagine you have a sales chart and you only want it to show data for the current year. To make that happen, follow these steps:

1. Select the sales table from the list on the dashboard or within Power BI.
2. Click on the table or chart visual you want to filter in Power BI.
3. In the Filters pane on the right, you need to add your regular date column (e.g., Sales[OrderDate]) to the "Filters on this visual" well.
4. Instead of using the basic date filtering, choose Advanced filtering and you will be able to select options like "is equal to".
5. In the Show items when the value section, select is equal to and use the Current Year measure as the value to compare against.

Now your visual will automatically filter to just show sales data from the current year, updating automatically when January rolls around.

Method 2: Create a Calculated Column for Easy Filtering

A calculated column is different from a measure. A calculated column is computed during a data refresh and physically stores its results in a column in your table. For this use case, it is useful to create something like a "true vs false" flag that identifies whether a row's date is in the current year.

When to Use This Method

If you need to create a slicer that lets users quickly toggle between data views from multiple years or want something you can reuse across many pages, then a calculated column is your best choice. The calculated column method is an effective alternative for cases where you simply want to filter an entire page to just the current year's data, while still being able to filter between this and other data from previous years with a simple click.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. In Power BI Desktop, switch to the Data view (the table icon on the left side).
2. Select the dataset or table that contains your date column (e.g., 'Sales Table').
3. From the Table tools ribbon at the top, click New Column.
4. In the formula bar that appears, enter the following DAX expression, making sure to use the [OrderDate] column of your dataset:

Is Current Year = YEAR(Sales[OrderDate]) = YEAR(TODAY())

1. Press Enter to save the column. You will now have a new column in your table that specifies if your row is in the current year or not.

Using Your Calculated Column

Now you can use this simple calculated column in several ways:

• In the Report View, add a Slicer visual to the canvas. Then add your calculated column ('Is Current Year') to the slicer.
• You will now have a slicer that has only two options: "True" for a view filtered to just the current year and "False" for the example data set to involve viewing previous years. This allows for quick reports showcasing year-wise dimensions effectively.

Final Considerations

Implementing dynamic measures and calculated columns for handling current year data in Power BI can significantly enhance the flexibility and efficiency of your reports. These techniques ensure that your visuals always reflect the most current data without requiring additional manual updates each year.

Whether you select a measure or a calculated column depends on your specific needs and how you want your users to interact with the report. The key is to create a report environment that seamlessly adapts to changes in time, unlocking valuable insights with each passing year.