Filters in Power BI: Unlock the Power of Data Filtering

Filters in Power BI are one of the most significant features of the tool. Being able to apply filters helps you focus on what’s important. Without filters in Power BI, it will be somewhat impossible to analyze subsets of data and draw insights from them.

In this guide, you’ll discover what insights in Power BI are, and why they’re important.

Table of Contents:

1. What are Filters in Power BI?
2. Why are Power BI Filters So Important?
3. What is the Purpose of Power BI Filters?
4. How Many Types of Filters are in Power BI?
5. What is the Difference Between a Power BI Filter vs. Slicer?
6. How to Remove the Filter from Power BI Visuals?
7. How to Apply or Add a Filter in the Power BI Dashboard?
8. How to Create Visualizations in Power BI?
9. Wrap Up

First…

What are Filters in Power BI?

Power BI filters are used for extracting information from a large volume of data and representing such information in visuals and reports. With Power BI filters, including Power BI cross-filter direction, it becomes easy to focus on a specific subset of data from a dataset.

This feature enhances the filtering process by allowing data to flow across related tables, enabling users to see how changes in one filter affect others. The specific subset of data is targeted using the given criteria.

After opening the Power BI report design with the dataset, the filters panel is found on the right side of the screen.

Why are Power BI Filters So Important?

Here are the major benefits of using Power BI filters.

• Data Focus: Power BI filters help in isolating data points. It’s useful when you’re dealing with large Power BI datasets, and in cases when it’s somewhat challenging to isolate specific data points or ranges from large datasets.
• Interactivity: Power BI filters are interactive. A user has the option of adjusting the filters to enable the user to see how different selections impact the overall data visualizations. The interactivity helps in deepening understanding and promoting the exploration of the data.
• Customization: There are various customization criteria when using Power BI filters. These criteria could be category, time, or other dimension. This helps the user to design their analysis in such a way that fits their requirements.
• Comparative analysis: Power BI filters are like your personal data detective, helping you compare different data subsets side by side. This is especially useful for those diving into trend analysis, as it allows you to spot patterns, outliers, and trends across various data segments. With these filters, you can effortlessly unearth insights and make data-driven decisions based on a comprehensive view of your data.
• Drill-down analysis: Drill-down analysis is a case where users can begin by reviewing data and progress by diving deeper into specific subsets. All these can be accomplished by applying filters.

What is the Purpose of Power BI Filters?

Power BI filters help in narrowing down the data that’s being visualized in the Power BI dashboards and reports. Some key purposes of Power BI filters are:

• Interactivity
• Customization
• Data Focus
• Drill-Down Analysis
• Comparative Analysis

How Many Types of Filters are in Power BI?

The main types of filters are:

• Visual Level Filters
• Page Level Filters
• Report Level Filters
• Drill-Through Filters
• Cross-Report Filters (found in Power BI Service)

What is the Difference Between a Power BI Filter vs. Slicer?

Here is the major difference between Power BI filter vs. slicer:

Power BI Filters

• Directly applied to pages, visualizations, and the overall report.
• Can be used to filter data based on predefined conditions or rules.
• Operates behind the scenes without visible user interaction, and data is refined based on selected criteria.

Slicers

• With Slicers in Power BI, Users are enabled to choose ranges (or values) to filter data.
• Comes with interactive visual controls that are visible on the report canvas.
• Users can intuitively manipulate data subsets.

How to Remove the Filter from Power BI Visuals?

Clear Filter Button

• To apply the filter, click on the specific visual.
• Navigate to the “Clear Filter” icon found at the top-right corner of the visual. The “Clear Filter” icon is the funnel with an “X” inside.
• To remove the filter, click the “Clear Filter” option.

Remove Individual Filters

• Select the specific visual.
• From your Power BI interface, navigate to the “Filters” pane.
• To delete a specific filter, click the “X” icon that’s next to it.

Clear All Filters

• Navigate to the “Home” tab of your Power BI interface.
• To remove the filters that are applied to an entire report, click the “Clear filters” icon.

How to Apply or Add a Filter in the Power BI Dashboard?

Step 1: Using the page-level filter involves creating two visuals on the Power BI dashboard designs. For instance, two visuals (a pie chart and a table) were created.

Step 2: The visual level filters can be used to individually populate each visual. From the image below, you’ll notice that the two visual pie charts and tables have been populated by selecting the perspective fields from the data panel.

Step 3: To use the page-level filter, you’ll have to navigate to the data panel beneath the “Filters on this page” option and drag and drop the data fields. From the screenshot below, you’ll notice that the product data field has been dropped in the “Filters on this page.”

Step 4: Select the values from the data field you want to update on all visuals of your current page to update the entire visuals on the page. From the image below, values from the CPU, Hard Disk, and Pad have been selected, and they’ve been updated on the pie chart and table visuals.

From the image below, you’ll notice that the two visuals in the pie chart and table are updated.

How to Create Visualizations in Power BI?

Stage 1: Logging in to Power BI

• Log in to Power BI.
• Enter your email address and click the “Submit” button.

• You are redirected to your Microsoft account.
• Enter your password and click “Sign in“.

• You can choose whether to stay signed in.

• Once done, the Power BI home screen will open.

Stage 2: Creating a Data Set and Selecting the Data Set to Use in Your Chart

• Go to the left-side menu and click the “Create” button.
• Select “Paste or manually enter data“.

• We’ll use the sample data below for this example.

Total Cost	Company Type	Company Name	Expertise Categories	Expertise	Cost
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Skyline Contractors	Mechanical Installation	Plumbing & Heating	15456
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Skyline Contractors	Mechanical Installation	Mechanical Work	10159
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Onyx General Contractors	Mechanical Installation	Plumbing & Heating	18045
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Onyx General Contractors	Mechanical Installation	Mechanical Work	12695
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Living Well Remodeling	Mechanical Installation	Plumbing & Heating	14589
Total Cost	Subcontractor	Living Well Remodeling	Mechanical Installation	Welding	11456
Total Cost	Supplier	Power-up Builders	Raw Material	Cement	20561
Total Cost	Supplier	Power-up Builders	Raw Material	Steel	32456
Total Cost	Supplier	Five-star Construction	Raw Material	Bricks	10253
Total Cost	Supplier	Five-star Construction	Raw Material	Timber	9000

• Paste your data table into the “Power Query” window, and choose the “Create a dataset only” option.

• Navigate to the left-side menu, and click the “Data Hub” option. After that, Power BI populates the data set list. If no data set has been created, you’ll get an error message.

• Select the data set you want to represent in a Sankey diagram. After that, Power BI populates the screen similar to the image below.

• From the dropdown menu, click “Create a report.” Next, select “Start from scratch.”

• The Report Canvas will be similar to the image below:

Stage 3: Add the Power BI Sankey Diagram Extension by ChartExpo

• Navigate to the right side of your Power BI dashboard, and open the Power BI Visualization panel. After that, click the ellipsis symbol (…) to import the Power BI Sankey Diagram extension by ChartExpo.

• From the menu that opens, choose the “Get more visuals” option.

• Input “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” into the highlighted search box. You’ll see the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo.”

• Click the “Add’ button.

• The “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” icon will be added to the visualization panel.

Stage 4: Drawing the Sankey Diagram with ChartExpo’s Power BI extension.

• From the visualization panel, choose the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” icon. After that, a window similar to the image below will open.

• There’s the option of resizing the visual. Moving on, navigate to the right side of the Power BI dashboard, and look out for “Fields” next to “Visualizations.”

• You should select the fields using the sequence below:
• • Total Cost
  • Company Type
  • Company Name
  • Expertise Categories
  • Expertise
  • Cost

• You’ll have to provide your email address or ChartExpo license key.

Stage 5: Activate your ChartExpo Trial or Apply a Subscription Key.

• Choose the ChartExpo visual, and in the Visualization panel, look out for the three icons below “Build Visual.”

• Choose the middle icon, “Format visual.” The visual properties will be populated as shown in the image below.

• As a new user, you can get started by;
• • Input your email address into the textbox under the ”˜Trial Mode” section. A license key will be sent to your email. To activate the 7-day trial, toggle “Enable Trial.”

• The Sankey Diagram created within the 7-day trial will have the ChartExpo watermark.

• If you have a license key, you should enter it in the “ChartExpo License Key” textbox in the “License Settings” section. After that, slide the toggle switch next to “Enable License” to “On.”

• The Sankey diagram will be similar to the one below.

• To add a prefix (like the $ sign), expand the “Stats” properties, and insert the prefix value.

• To add colors to each node, expand the “Level Colors” properties, and choose the colors.

• All changes will be saved automatically.

Insights:

Here are three insights from the chart.

• At Level 1 (Total Cost), the procurement cost was $155k.
• At Level 2 (Company Type), out of the $155k cost, $82.4k (53.3%) was spent on subcontractors, while $72.3k (46.7%) was allocated to the supplier.
• At Level 3 (Company Name), the supplier cost of $72.3k was divided between two companies: Five-star Construction and Power-up Builder with charges of $19.3k and $53.0k, respectively.

FAQs

How to Use Filters in Power BI?

• Click on the visual
• Choose the field you want to filter
• To apply your desired filter, choose a filter type (like slicer or dropdown).

Can You Put a Filter on the Power BI Dashboard?

No, filters cannot be directly applied to a Power BI dashboard. However, there’s the option of filtering the underlying reports that are pinned to the dashboard, and the filters will reflect on your dashboard.

How Do You Write a Filter Query in Power BI?

Writing a filter query involves using Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) functions like CALCULATE, FILTER, and ALL to define criteria for filtering data in measures or visualizations.

Wrap Up

Filters in Power BI are features that help you focus on specific subsets. They play crucial roles when it comes to interactivity, data focus, storytelling, and analysis. Types of filters in Power BI include reports, pages, visuals, slicers, and others. Slicers provide user-visible interactive filtering.

With Power BI filters, users can narrow down and refine the data that’s being visualized in their dashboards and reports. It also helps the user to focus on specific data subsets that are relevant to their reporting and analysis needs.

For emphasis, Power BI filters help in:

• Data focus
• Customization
• Comparative analysis
• Drill-down analysis
• Interactivity

Now you know the benefits of filters in Power BI and how to use them in your Sankey chart, what kind of data will you be filtering?