Power BI Report Filtering Options - Snack 17

There are multitude of ways and means to filter in Power BI.  A few snacks back, we talked about how the visualizations can filter one another. Additionally, specific visuals can be included for nothing more than filtering.  If you scan through the visualizaiton icons, you will find such filter called "Slicer."

Slicer enables you to choose a datapoint or set of datapoints to use in filtering the page.

Let's try it out.  Access your report and jump into EDIT mode.

1. Click out in the blank space so that you are sure to have nothing selected.
2. Find and click the SLICER visualization under the Visualizations tab.
3. Drag and drop SEGMENT from the Data Panel into the Visualization Panel Field
1. You should see the visualization populate with the market segments.
1. Click the boxes and watch the changes
2. Unclick all boxes
4. Format your visual
1. Under Slicer Settings, you will see that this visual has three.
1. Vertical List
2. Tile
3. Drop Down
2. Cycle through them and see what happens
3. Choose Drop Down when done playing around
1. As with other visuals there are other modifications you can make it look just how you like.
5. Move and Size your visual to make the most of the space on the page.
6. SAVE!!

You are probably thinking you can squeeze a lot onto the page and manipulate quite a bit with filters.  

That is correct, but it can get busy, and space is limited.  Eventually you will find yourself lacking sufficient real estate, especially when your users start telling you how they would really prefer to slice and dice your report.

That is where the Filter Panel comes in handy.  This is always present and can be populated in any way for a single visual, a single page, or every single page in the report.  You can guess what they by their section name in the Filter Panel.

Try it out!

1. Click in the blank space of your report again to ensure nothing is selected.
2. Drag and drop the following fields from the data panel to the little box under "Filter on all pages"
1. Date
2. Discount Band
3. Product
4. Segment
3. SAVE!!

There only a couple of parameters you can mess with on these. 

• Require single selection
• This will force the user to choose only one item, though they can still CTRL+Click to choose more.
• Filter type
• Basic filtering
• Offers a list of choices
• Advanced filtering
• Offers a sort of query view enabling more exacting choices
• Relative Date & Relative Time
• Only available for Date fields
• Enables a user to choose a period
• In the last ... however many whatever
• In this ... whatever
• In the next ... however many whatever
• requires futures dates

You can also hide these filters, which is useful if you want to present a very specific view for a visual or for a particular page.  Hover over the cards in the Filter panel and you will see tiny little icons that enable you to ...

• Expand or collapse filter card
• Remove (the filter card)
• Lock (the filter so it cannot be changed)
• Hide (nobody can see this filter card when it is published)

That is all we have for today.  Happy Filtering!

Screenshot includes the Filter panel this time for reference.