title: Power BI data model design relationships - direct active relationship would introduce ambiguity between the tables
body: <p>Can anyone offer some modeling &amp; relationship advise in Power BI?</p>
  <p>I have two Customer tables at different grains that I am trying to relate to a Customer rollup group (<strong><code>'dimCustomers'</code></strong>).</p>
  <p>The two customers tables (<strong><code>'dimBillTierCustomer'</code></strong> and <strong><code>'dimCustomerMeter'</code></strong>) are individually related to my fact table (<strong><code>'factSummaryTicket'</code></strong>). These two relationships work individually, but I want them to be aware of the relationship they each have to <em>'dimCustomers'</em>, so I can use Customers to filter both tables in the report.</p>
  <p>When I relate each of them, I get an error message on the second relationship.</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>You can’t create a direct active relationship between <em>'dimCustomerMeter'</em> and <em>'dimCustomers'</em> because that would introduce ambiguity between the tables <em>'dimCustomers'</em> and <em>'factSummaryTicket'</em>. To make this relationship active, deactivate or delete one of the relationships between <em>'dimCustomers'</em> and <em>'factSummaryTicket'</em> first.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>Screenshots below show sample data, table relations, and the error message.</p>
  <p>Bill Tier is for Customer pricing rules. Customer Meter is customer locations hierarchy. Customer should filter both of these tables.</p>
  <p><strong>Table Relations</strong></p>
  <pre><code>+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  | Relation   (From : To)                                                                   | CrossFiltering | FromCardinality | ToCardinality | IsActive  |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  | [gopherMeterId].[factSummaryTicket]     ==&gt; : &lt;==    [bisonMeterId].[dimCustomerMeter]   | OneDirection   | Many            | One           | TRUE      |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  | [CustBillTierKey].[factSummaryTicket]   ==&gt; : &lt;==    [CustTierKey].[dimBillTierCustomer] | OneDirection   | Many            | One           | TRUE      |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  | [eticketOperatorId].[dimCustomerMeter]  ==&gt; : &lt;==    [eticketOperatorId].[dimCustomers]  | OneDirection   | Many            | One           | **FALSE** |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  | [CustKey].[dimBillTierCustomer]         ==&gt; : &lt;==    [eticketOperatorId].[dimCustomers]  | OneDirection   | Many            | One           | TRUE      |
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------+
  </code></pre>
  <p><strong>Sample Data</strong></p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YfBDn.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YfBDn.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>Table Diagram</strong></p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/saKQY.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/saKQY.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>