Power Of Slicer In Power BI

Overview

In this article, we will learn how we can use Slicer in Power BI. Power BI provides an OOTB Slicer that has a lot of features. By using this Slicer, we can achieve so many things. Now, let’s elaborate on all the features of this Slicer.

Step 1

Open Power BI Desktop.

Step 2

I already have prepared one report in Power BI. Now, we will apply slicer for different types of datatypes. In this example, I want to apply a filter for Order Date. I will apply the Slicer on DateTime datatype.

Step 3

Slicer for Date and Time datatype will look like this by default.

 

Step 4

Now, we will click on the down arrow from the top right corner.

 

It has 5 options available.

1. Between
2. Before
3. After
4. List
5. Dropdown
6. Relative

Now, we will elaborate each type in details.

Relative

• It is the most popular setting used by most of the developers.
• If we apply Relative, it will look like this.
  
  
  
  
• It provides this kind of options like last/next/this x week/month etc. time data.
  
   
  
   
  
   

Between

• It is default selection for the Slicer.
• It provides time line and date picker functionality.
• Using this date picker, we can select a date for it.
  
   
  
   

Before

• If we select “Before” as behavior, it will disable the start date.
• User can only select end date.
  
  
  

After

• If we select “After” as behavior, it will disable the end date
• User can select only start date.
  
  

List

• If we select List as a behavior, it will show all the dates in a list form.
• User can check a checkbox and select date to filter data.
  
  

Dropdown

• If we select Dropdown as a behavior, it will display all the dates in dropdown form.
• User can select checkbox from dropdown and select values.
  
   

Step 5

Now, we will apply the filter to the Text field.

 

It will show this type of filter.

Step 6

It is showing these two options,

• List
• Dropdown

 

List

• It will represent the text type as List.
• By default, this option is selected.

 

Dropdown

• This will show the regions in dropdown.

 

If we have less amount of data for filtering, we can also represent the same Slicer in horizontal manner.

To apply the Slicer in horizontal form, just select visual > General Tab > Orientation > Horizontal.

 

It will look like this.

 

Conclusion

This is how we can use Slicer in Power BI.

It provides different levels of functionality for different datatypes in a Slicer.