Data types in Power BI

Decimal data types store numbers with decimal points. They are used for measurements, financial figures and other precise calculations.

To calculate total charges of a product including tax (as a percentage) the numbers are usually not whole numbers.

It stores numbers with exactly four digits after the decimal point. Good for very precise values.

Lets say we want to list the heights of all the students in a classroom. 2 decimal points of accuracy shall be enough.

These data types store non-decimal numbers and are used for counting or indexing purposes.

Think of product IDs, employee numbers or serial numbers.

It stores numbers as percentages.

We use percentage in marks obtained in a test, composition of a product, relative humidity, etc.

A Date/Time value is a combination of both date and time and represented as a Decimal number. The time component is stored as a fraction of 1/300 seconds (equivalent to 3.33 milliseconds) or as multiples of this fraction.

For tracking and visualizing events or transactions with both date and time components like order timestamps.

It only stores the data without time.

Used to represent calendar dates without time information used for date-based analysis like daily sales.

It only stores the time of the day without date.

Applied when you need to work with times of day like in measuring response times.

It stores date and time with timezone information. Time is shown the same no matter where you open the report.

Used for working with date and time data that includes timezone information like for international reporting.

Duration stores the amount of time between two events.

Used to measure the length of time intervals, like time spent on tasks or project durations.

The Text data type stores textual information like words , letters , numbers and special characters as text. The maximum limit for string length is approximately 32,000 Unicode characters.

Whether you're working with product names, customer addresses or employee names the Text data type is used.

Boolean data types can have one of two values: True or False. They are used in conditional expressions and allow you to filter data based on specific conditions.

For representing binary, yes/no or true/false data, used in filtering or flagging records.

The Binary data type is used to store binary data such as images, documents or any non-textual information. Used for purposes like document management and retrieval.

Used for storing binary data, like images, documents or other non-text data in a binary format.

Change a value into text with a specific format like currency or date

Turns a text date like "01/01/2025" into a real data

turns a text time like "12:30 PM" into a real time

Rounds a number down to the nearest whole number

Checks a condition and gives one result if it's true and another if it's false