Default Date For Date Slicer

[tom-lenzmeier]

Greetings!

I'm wondering if there's been a solution for displaying the current month-year as the default date in a slicer. Many of the YouTube videos I've looked at all have something like "Current Month/Year" as a text field in the date slicer. In my fantasy world, rather than a text field, I'd like to have the display be the current month year --> Sep 2025. There was a visual in the marketplace called "PreSelected Slicer," but it doesn't seem to work well. If worse comes to worse, I'll go with the text approach. Thanks in advance.

[Khushboobarai]

How to make the Date slicer without the slide range (slider) and only one date with calendar icon which should work as the real life calendar to slecte a particular date like if we slecet between , before or after, each case there is two slecteion of date showing by default, by i don want like that.

is it possible that with only one selction with calendar icon to go through more date ?
so that user can slecet any date any year or month????????????

[v-tejrama]

Hi @tom-lenzmeier ,

Your approach to finding a method for a slicer to automatically display the current month and year is on the right track. However, Power BI does not offer a built-in feature for date slicers to reset to the current month upon opening a report. Slicers retain the user's previous selection, which is why many YouTube tutorials suggest various workarounds.

The most effective and straightforward solution is to use a relative date slicer. By setting it to show data for the last calendar month, it will update automatically as time progresses, providing a dynamic filter without the need for bookmarks or custom visuals. This method also avoids common issues, such as slicers displaying two date boxes or inconsistent behavior depending on the mode. While the relative slicer does not show a friendly month name, you can add a card visual next to it with a measure like FORMAT(TODAY(), "MMM YYYY") to clearly display the current month and year for users.

If you prefer a list-style slicer, you can create a flag in your date table for the current month and preselect it before publishing. However, this option still retains the previous selection and may cause confusion if users change it, making the relative slicer approach more reliable in most cases.

Thank you.

[Khushboobarai]

Thank fo ryou response, but i did not get what you actully want to describe me about the date slicer...can you tell me in sort like if there is really a way to solve this Particular date filter.

[v-tejrama]

Hi @Khushboobarai ,

I can definitely clarify this for you. In Power BI, there isn’t a native way to turn the date slicer into a true single date picker that works like a regular calendar popup where you choose one exact date from one box. The built-in slicer is designed to show two inputs whenever it is in between mode, and even in before or after mode it still doesn’t behave like a classic one-box date selector. At the moment Power BI simply doesn’t offer a slicer that lets the user pick one specific date in that streamlined way.

If your goal is to avoid the extra date boxes and simplify the experience, the relative date slicer is the closest option because it avoids the dual calendar layout and stays clean, but it works with rolling ranges rather than letting someone manually choose a single date. I know that isn’t the exact interaction you were hoping for, but it is the current limitation of the built-in visuals. If Microsoft adds a true single date picker in the future it would definitely make this scenario easier, but for now this is the expected behavior. Hope this helps clear things up.

Thank you.

[v-tejrama]

Hi @Khushboobarai ,

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Thank you.

[audreygerred]

I prefer using the filter pane for a several reasons filters - one of them is this... If you have a date field in your filter pane, you can have it set to 'Is in this month' or whatever you need and then if your users need something different, they simply change it - and not just change how many months, they can change it from relative to advanced to basic filter so they get full range of motion 🙂

[v-tejrama]

Hi @tom-lenzmeier 

Thank you @Shahid12523   for the response provided!

Has your issue been resolved? If the response provided by the community member addressed your query, could you please confirm? It helps us ensure that the solutions provided are effective and beneficial for everyone.

Thank you for your understanding!

[v-tejrama]

Hi  @tom-lenzmeier ,

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Thank you,

Tejaswi.

[Shahid12523]

Best Option: Use a Relative Date Slicer → set to “In the last 1 calendar months.” Add a card with:

CurrentMonthYear = FORMAT(TODAY(), "MMM YYYY")

→ Shows “Sep 2025” dynamically.

Alternative: In your Date Table add:

IsCurrentMonth =
IF(YEAR('Date'[Date])=YEAR(TODAY()) &&
MONTH('Date'[Date])=MONTH(TODAY()), 1, 0)

Then use this in the slicer, preselect “1.”

[alish_b]

Hey @tom-lenzmeier ,

I would suggest going with the text approach. At present, it is the cleanest approach to meet your requirement.

There is a sticky selection issue (or feature) in Power BI slicers. If you select something, it will retain that selection even if that selection is no longer available in table or the context (in simple terms, if you have two slicers one for Category and other for Subcategory, Cat A has SubCat A to SubCat D under it and Cat B has SubCat E to H, if you had selected the SubCategory slicer first and selected SubCat A and then gone to select Category B, the SubCategory slicer would still have SubCat A selected, even though it should not be under category B, and yes if you click on the slicer, you will see that selection SubCat A at the bottom and it will vanish if you remove the check mark). And the text approach "Current Month/Year" cleverly exploits this behavior. 
Well while I can think of a way where you could set up a slicer that default selects the Sep 2025, but it would require setting up progressive disclosure with bookmarks and buttons, then converting the slicer to single-select with a force selection enabled along with desired sorting. Because I did something similar in the past and ended up hating bookmarks, I would not recommend this route.
Unless anyone here suggests a cleverer and clean approach, please save yourself the trouble and keep it simple with the text approach. 

Hope it helps!

[Shubham_rai955 · Accepted solution]

Hi @tom-lenzmeier , Power BI doesn't natively allow slicers to always default to the current month. To mimic this, add a calculated column to your date table marking the current month (e.g., "Current" or offset = 0), use it in a slicer, and pre-select it before publishing; with custom visuals like "Button Slicer," selection can update automatically after refresh

[Khushboobarai]

How to make the Date slicer without the slide range (slider) and only one date with calendar icon which should work as the real life calendar to slecte a particular date like if we slecet between , before or after, each case there is two slecteion of date showing by default, by i don want like that.

is it possible that with only one selction with calendar icon to go through more date ?
so that user can slecet any date any year or month?