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Deep dive into the new Apply all slicers and Clear all slicers buttons!

Headshot of article author Zoe Douglas

Product Manager
March 15, 2023

Want to make multiple selections across all the slicers on your report page then apply them at once? Need a quick way to clear all the slicer’s selections at once? Now you can!

The Apply all slicers button, when on the report page, will keep track of all the slicer selections and then apply them at once when you click the Apply all slicers button! This button can be added and formatted just like another button in Power BI, and also can be added directly from the Optimize ribbon.

Let’s look at some scenarios!

  1. Apply multiple slicers on the report page at once – If you have a report page with multiple slicers, and your report consumers prefer to finish making all their selections before the other visuals update, now they can!Here I have a report with 5 slicers. When I make selections the six other visuals keep changing with every selection. Picking 2 different options on the first three slicers, 1 on the fourth, and 4 on the last one meant I clicked 11 different selections. 10 of those different selections also updated the other 6 visuals on the page unnecessarily, resulting in 60 unnecessary visual queries! I can bring this down to just 6 necessary visual queries with the Apply all slicers button. I can go to the Optimize ribbon and click on the Apply all slicers button to quickly add this button to my report page. As it is a button, I can format it how I like! So, I am going to go and make it a pill shape and give it a bolder fill color for when there is a pending change in my slicers (the default state). With this button on the report page, I can now make all the selections I want on all my slicers without any other visual updating. The slicers have a small pending icon show next to the Slicer header to indicate they have pending selections and the Apply all slicers button goes to the default state. When I am done, I simply click the Apply all slicers button and the other visuals update! The Apply all slicers button returns to a disabled state, and the slicers pending icons are gone, indicating there are no remaining pending selections. This basic scenario demonstrates significant query reduction, reducing 66 visual queries down to only 6.
  2. Hiding the apply all slicers button with a bookmark also allows for instantly applying slicers – If you want to let your report consumers decide how they want to apply their slicers, you can do that also! When the last Apply all slicers button on the report page is hidden, the slicers will simply revert to instantly applying as you make selections. To do this I create a bookmark to show the button and a bookmark to hide the button, then surface those bookmarks with the bookmark navigator!
    1. In the Selection pane: Select the Apply all slicers button so it is highlighted.
    2. In the Bookmarks pane: Click “Add”, then adjust the bookmark to “Selected visuals”, then “Update” and finally rename to “Apply all slicers”.
    3. In the Selection pane: Click the little eye next to the button to hide it on the report page. Then select the (now hidden) Apply all slicers button again so it is highlighted.
    4. In the Bookmarks pane: Click “Add” again, then adjust the bookmark to “Selected visuals”, then “Update” and finally rename to “Instantly apply”.
    5. Now the bookmarks are set up, go to Insert -> Buttons -> Bookmark navigator.
    6. I want this to look like little tabs above my left section, so I change the shape to a trapezoid with 10px rounding and 20% slant. Then for the default state I make the text DIN 8 centered top with 8px padding in black with a grey 0% transparent fill and no border. For the selected state I make it the same, except with a white 0% transparent fill. Then I position it behind my left section and change it to maintain layer order.
    7. I can ctrl-click either one to engage the bookmark.
    8. When “Instantly apply” bookmark is clicked and the button hidden, the slicers simply instantly apply every selection I make. And alternatively, when the “Apply all slicers” bookmark tab is clicked, the button comes back, and I have the experience of the first scenario – full query reduction while I make my selections!

      So, you can choose to give your report consumers a way to decide for themselves how they want to have their slicer selections applied. Note: Currently, you must hide the actual button for this to work, hiding the Selection pane group the button is in will not revert the slicers. Also, if you happen to have slicers with pending changes when you hide the last Apply all slicers button, the pending changes will be instantly applied.

  3. Clear all slicers allows you to quickly clear all the slicers – And finally, in the first scenario you saw that now you can quickly clear and apply all the slicers on the report page with the Clear all slicers button! This is also a query reduction feature. To clear the slicers one by one with the slicer’s “Clear selections” means for my 5-slicer report, the first 4 times you clear the slicers the visuals update before you are done, creating 4 times 6 visual queries, or 24 unnecessary visual queries. With Clear all slicers button now all the slicers are cleared and then the other visuals update!

Some things to keep in mind with these buttons:

  • Apply all slicers and Clear all slicers buttons impact all the slicers on the report page. You cannot pick and choose which slicers you want each button to control. They also do not control the filters pane.
  • You can have as many of these buttons on your report page as you like! If you have most of your slicers in one section, but maybe one or two slicers in another section, you can simply have a button in both sections. Either button, when pressed, will apply to all the slicers on the report page.
  • Hiding the last Apply all slicers button will simply release its control over the slicers and they will revert to instantly applying selections as you click.

Some things to keep in mind with the slicers:

  • The slicers with selections not yet applied to other visuals are in a pending state.
  • This pending state of the slicer is indicated in the Slicer header with a pending icon and some customizable text.
  • The slicer pending icon cannot be changed but the pending icon’s color, size, transparency, if it’s to the left or right of the header, or even if it’s shown at all, can be adjusted in the formatting pane.
  • If the slicer header is turned off, then there is no indication of the pending state of the selections on the slicer itself — but the Apply all slicers button will no longer be in a disabled state when one or more of the slicers has a pending change.

Next steps