Slicer not affecting any visuals

[Loubot3000]

I have a slicer that isn't affecting any visuals, even though when I go to the source of the data (Excel) and apply the same filters to the data tables, it most definitely should have an affect.

I have checked 'edit interactions' for that slicer and they are turned on for all visuals, so that's not the issue.

My data comes from an Excel file, where the tables are seperated by sheet, and all have a UUID column in common. There is a sheet that acts as the central demographics table, also with UUIDs. In Power BI, most of these tables have been unpivoted (except the central one), and have multi-way many-to-one relationships to the central table using the UUIDs. All the visuals in the report take data from these tables.

The table the slicer comes from is one of these unpivoted tables, where respondants can answer Yes/No to each category. I have made the correct both-way many-to-one relationship between unique IDs in that table and the unique IDs in the central demographics table (as far as I can tell). The slicer lists the categories, and I have applied a filter to the slicer so that it only includes people answering Yes. When I click on the different options in the slicer, it doesn't change anything in the visuals.

Alternatively, when I include the columns of that table (not unpivoted) into the central demographics table instead, and create a slicer based on that, it does seem to affect the visuals. This is how I've made all my other slicers that work. However then I run into the issue where the slicer is just a bunch of nested Yes/Nos, whereas I need it to be a list of categories, with only Yes's counted.

Any idea why this slicer isn't doing anything?

Alternatively, any idea how to construct the slicer using the second method to look how I want?

Thanks

[v-yueyunzh-msft]

Hi , @Loubot3000 

It sounds like the issue might be related to the relationships between the tables in your data model. When you create a slicer in Power BI, it filters the data in the visuals based on the relationships between the tables. If the relationships are not set up correctly, the slicer may not filter the data as expected.

Here are some steps you can follow to troubleshoot the issue:

(1)Check the relationships between the tables in your data model. Make sure that the relationships are set up correctly and that they are active. You can check this by going to the "Manage Relationships" dialog in Power BI.

(2)Check the filter context of the visuals. Make sure that the visuals are not already filtered by another slicer or filter. You can check this by looking at the "Filters" pane in Power BI.

(3)For a one-to-many relationship, it is preferred to use the field of one end table as the parameter of the slicer.

(4)If Measure is used in other visual objects, you need to check whether the DAX code of Measure ignores the filter for the fields in the slicer.

It is difficult to find the problem immediately through a simple text description, you can try to troubleshoot the problem yourself, or you can create a sample .pbix [without sensitive data] to the OneDrive and share with the OneDrive link to me ! and save your The slicer of the problem tells us with a screenshot, and provides us with the output you want in the form of a table, so that we can help you better! ~

Thank you for your time and sharing, and thank you for your support and understanding of PowerBI! 

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[Loubot3000]

(1) The relationships are definitely set up correctly, from what I can tell. All tables are unpivoted and link back to the central table via UUID (many to one, both ways). What DOES work is if the columns I want to filter my tables by are simply included in the central table, rather than having the filter columns as their own seperate table. From this I can conclude that a feature (bug?) of Power BI is that it can't filter tables through indirect relationships. Now my goal is to look into a way of getting the slicer properties that I want, with the filter columns included in the central table.

(2) Shouldn't visuals be able to be filtered by multiple filters and slicers? I can confirm this works for me.

(3) and (4) I'm not entirely sure what you mean/why?

I appreciate it's difficult to really diagnose this without providing a file. When I get time I will try to supply one.

[v-yueyunzh-msft]

Hi , @Loubot3000 

Thanks for your quick response , for the (3) and (4) , i mean that if you have a one-to-many relationship , and the it is not a Bi-directional relationship , the filter will just from one to many . If you put the fields on the fact table , it will not filter the other fact table util it have the Bi-directional.

You can understand that relationships are all from one-side table to multi-side table by default, and can be passed.

If it is a one-way relationship, some tables cannot be filtered after the relationship is broken.
And for relationships, we recommend using one-to-many relationships.

For more information, you can refer to :
Bi-directional relationship guidance - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Thank you for your time and sharing, and thank you for your support and understanding of PowerBI! 

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[Loubot3000]

Ah I see. Yeah everything is bi-directional, so I don't think that's an issue. I suspect PBI has an interesting behaviour where visuals can't be filtered through indirect relationships.

I'm now just including the columns I'm filtering by in the central table that all the other tables are related to. I'm trying to make a slicer that includes all these columns, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that without them nesting. I tried making a field parameter slicer but it has no effect, and when I put a filter on this slicer to only select "Yes" values in the relevant columns, it still has no effect.

How do I create a slicer that filters by values form multiple columns?

i.e. a slicer containing multiple seperate categories.

[v-yueyunzh-msft]

Hi, @Loubot3000 

Acoording to your description , you wan to create a slicer that filters by values form multiple columns.

I have no sample test data and i do not know what the relationships in your model .

For your need , if you need to create a slicer to filter multiple columns in your visual , you can try to create  a measure to return a value to control the row if you need to show in the visual.

And then you can put this measure on the "Filter on this visual" and then you can filter the visual by your custom slicer.

Thank you for your time and sharing, and thank you for your support and understanding of PowerBI! 

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[Loubot3000]

This would not work as I would need to do it for every single visual.

It looks like you can download slicers that can filter by multiple categories in a non-nested way - but I haven't found one that also *looks nice* lol.

Can't win.