Slicers & Filters for Interactivity
A slicer is an on-screen filter — click a region and the whole page updates instantly.
What you will learn
- Add a slicer to a report
- Filter the whole page by clicking
- Know slicers vs the Filters pane
What makes a dashboard interactive
The best part of Power BI is that reports are interactive. A slicer is a little control on the page — a list of regions, a dropdown of products, a date range — and clicking it filters every visual on the page at once.
Adding a slicer
To let viewers filter by region:
- Click the Slicer icon in the Visualizations pane.
- Drag the Region field into it.
- A list of regions (North, South, East) appears with clickable boxes.
Now watch what happens when a viewer clicks North:
Slicer: Region Before click After clicking "North"
[ ] North Total Sales 11750 Total Sales 10100
[ ] South (all regions) (only North rows)
[ ] EastNote: Output: The moment North is clicked, the Total Sales card drops from 11,750 to 10,100, the bar chart shows only North, and the table lists only North rows. One click re-filtered the entire page — that is the interactivity that makes a dashboard feel alive.
Slicers vs the Filters pane
There are two ways to filter, and they suit different needs:
| Slicer | Filters pane | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | On the page, visible to viewers | A side panel (Filters) |
| Who uses it | The viewer, by clicking | You, the report builder |
| Best for | Choices you want people to make | Background limits (e.g. year = 2026) |
Use a slicer for the choices you want your audience to play with. Use the Filters pane for quiet, behind-the-scenes limits — like keeping only this year’s data — that viewers do not need to touch.
Tip: To clear a slicer and see everything again, hover over it and click the small eraser (clear) icon in its top corner, or click the selected item a second time.
Watch out: Slicers filter visuals on the same page by default. A slicer on page 1 does not change page 2 unless you turn on Sync slicers — handy to know when your numbers “do not update”.
Q. What happens when a viewer clicks a value in a slicer?
✍️ Practice
- Add a Region slicer and click each value, watching the cards and charts update.
- Add a second slicer for Product and use both together.
🏠 Homework
- Add a slicer to a report and write down how three different visuals change when you pick one value.