Forum Discussion
Filter Power BI in table visual for report level filtering
Hi, I am investigating if Power BI can handle filtering in a table visual that can be reflected on report level. The issue stems from a need to select only a few relevant customers (~30) out of a very large number of customers (115k) which makes it tedious to search for and select those customers in a customer slicer.
Today the users can do it in Qlik as the picture shows:
After these customers are selected, they want to do a similar selection of the product table which is on the same report page and contains 2k products. The selection also needs to be interactive so that they could deselect customers and/or products as they go, and have it reflected on a report level.
How can this be done? Any suggestion even ones using other Azure tools and very out of the box suggestions are welcome.
Hi Anonymous ,
That’s a really good question and a very common scenario when moving from Qlik to Power BI. Out of the box, Power BI doesn’t allow you to pick rows directly from a table visual and have those selections automatically filter the rest of the report.
However, there are a couple of approaches you can use to get very close to that behavior:- Disconnected selection tables – You can create a separate “selection” table for Customers and Products, and then use slicers or table visuals based on those. With some simple DAX (e.g. a filter flag measure), you can make sure that only the chosen Customers/Products flow through to the rest of the report. This gives you interactive selection and deselection that applies at report level.
- Custom visuals – If you’d like a more Qlik-like experience, visuals such as Smart Filter Pro from AppSource provide search, multi-select, and bulk selection features which can make it easier to handle large lists like your 115k customers.
- Performance considerations – Since you’re dealing with a very large customer base, it may also help to introduce some kind of “shortlist” logic (e.g. via a pre-filtered table or parameter) so users don’t always have to scroll through the full list.
In short, while you can’t directly select rows in a Power BI table to drive report filtering, you can replicate the outcome with disconnected tables and slicers, and there are also custom visuals that can enhance the user experience.
Thank you,Tejaswi.
3 Replies
- Shahid12523
Community Champion
Power BI table visuals can’t act as slicers by default.
Workarounds:
Use disconnected selection tables (Customers, Products) + DAX → acts like interactive slicers.
Or use Power Apps visual for advanced pick/deselect.
Or Deneb/Custom visuals if you want Qlik-like behavior.
Best approach: build disconnected selection tables → show as table → selections filter report globally.
Hi Anonymous ,
That’s a really good question and a very common scenario when moving from Qlik to Power BI. Out of the box, Power BI doesn’t allow you to pick rows directly from a table visual and have those selections automatically filter the rest of the report.
However, there are a couple of approaches you can use to get very close to that behavior:- Disconnected selection tables – You can create a separate “selection” table for Customers and Products, and then use slicers or table visuals based on those. With some simple DAX (e.g. a filter flag measure), you can make sure that only the chosen Customers/Products flow through to the rest of the report. This gives you interactive selection and deselection that applies at report level.
- Custom visuals – If you’d like a more Qlik-like experience, visuals such as Smart Filter Pro from AppSource provide search, multi-select, and bulk selection features which can make it easier to handle large lists like your 115k customers.
- Performance considerations – Since you’re dealing with a very large customer base, it may also help to introduce some kind of “shortlist” logic (e.g. via a pre-filtered table or parameter) so users don’t always have to scroll through the full list.
In short, while you can’t directly select rows in a Power BI table to drive report filtering, you can replicate the outcome with disconnected tables and slicers, and there are also custom visuals that can enhance the user experience.
Thank you,Tejaswi.
