Syncing Hierarchical Date Slicers Not Working

[WishAskedSooner]

I know this has been asked and answered before, but for the life of me I can't get this to work even after trying many of the suggestions. I believe I may have stumbled upon one of PBI's limitations, but wanted to check with all you Experts before throwing in the towel!

I have two Fact tables, A and B, joined by an MMR. And before you say, whoa! there's your problem, trust me, it is the only solution to my business requirements.

Both Fact Tables A and B have a Date column, and I have an active relationship to the DimDate table for Fact Table A and an in-active relationship for Fact Table B. It looks like a big circle of relationships.

I have Date Slicer A (built-in, not a third-party) for Fact Table A, and in order for the Visualizations to work properly, I need Date Slicer B on Fact Table B as well with the Date Slicers sliced identically. So what I did was sync Date Slicers A and B and hide Slicer B. All works as expected. Happy face!

Now, for obvious reasons, I want a hierachical slicer for Date Slicer A. However, as soon as I make the slicers hierarchical, sync'ing no longer works. Sad face.

Fact Table B is materialized from Fact Table A. Therefore, the cardinality/granularity of the Dates in Fact Tables A and B is identical. And the only difference between the slicers is that the hierarchy of Slicer A comes from the DimDate table which has an active relationship with Fact Table A, and the hierarchy of Slicer B comes from Fact Table B which was denormalized from the DimDate table via USERELATIONSHIP and the in-active relationship.

And let me repeat, the sync'ing works great when the slicers AREN'T hierarchical.

I am not sure what else I can say about this. The model is brand new and no more complex than what I have already described.

Thanks for the help!

[rohit1991]

Hi @WishAskedSooner ,

You’re running into a known Power BI limitation: hierarchical date slicers only propagate filters through active relationships. As soon as you use a hierarchy (like Year > Quarter > Month > Day), the filter doesn’t sync to tables connected via an inactive relationship, even if you’re using USERELATIONSHIP in your measures.

A regular date slicer (single-column) applies a filter directly, so you can sync it across fact tables (using USERELATIONSHIP as needed). A hierarchical slicer sends multi-level filters that only traverse the active path in the model. Fact Table B, relying on an inactive relationship, won’t sync.

Workarounds:

1. Measures with USERELATIONSHIP: For Fact Table B visuals, always use DAX like CALCULATE([Your Measure], USERELATIONSHIP(FactB[Date], DimDate[Date]))
   
   

2. Disconnected Date Table: Advanced but possible, use a disconnected Date table as the slicer, and tie both fact tables’ visuals to it using DAX (with TREATAS or similar). It gives you more control but requires more complex measures and careful model design.
   
   

3. Keep Slicers Non-hierarchical: If syncing is more important than hierarchy, using a regular (single-column) slicer works across both tables, as you noticed.

Make sure both Fact Tables are linked to the same DimDate. “Sync Slicers” in Power BI helps keep slicer visuals aligned across pages, but won’t bypass this hierarchy limitation. There isn’t a built-in Power BI feature that allows hierarchical slicers to sync through inactive relationships (as of July 2025).

Right now, the only robust native workaround is to use standard slicers for full sync or use USERELATIONSHIP-wrapped measures for visuals filtered by inactive relationships. If you ever need a more “hacky” workaround, you could experiment with disconnected slicers and custom DAX, but that can get tricky.

[Irwan]

hello @WishAskedSooner 

I have two Fact tables, A and B, joined by an MMR. And before you say, whoa! there's your problem, trust me, it is the only solution to my business requirements.

MMR between fact is usefull in some cases as long as you have a unique value so it will match correctly between those facts.

Now, for obvious reasons, I want a hierachical slicer for Date Slicer A. However, as soon as I make the slicers hierarchical, sync'ing no longer works. Sad face.

if the MMR use date column, perhaps try to have MMR that is not date column (for example, create concatenate value in calculated column).

it would be great if you have a sample data so expert PBI here can have it checked for you.

Thank you.

[WishAskedSooner]

Thank you so much for your quick response! I apologize for leaving out the detail that the MMR join between Fact Table A and B is not on Date. Rather, they are joined on an ID column that is unique, just not to these two Fact Tables.

The only reason I mention the MMR is to point out that the DimDate table doesn't filter Fact Table B. Maybe there is another way around this via the data lineage that doesn't require a second Slicer? That would be ideal actually. But, I am not quite sure how to go about it.

Your suggestion to create a unique ID to join on is clearly another possibility.

Sadly, uploading a test file is not possible. Although I might be able to re-create this scenario from the Contoso Sample.

[Anonymous]

Hi @WishAskedSooner 

Please share some sample data and expected outcome. This could help forum users understand your question better and find a possible solution or alternative more quickly. THis blog should be helpful: How to provide sample data in the Power BI Forum - Microsoft Fabric Community

Best Regards,
Jing

[Irwan]

hello @WishAskedSooner 

if you have unique ID between those facts, then i think you good to go since you will not have mixed value or wrong data relationship. I usually double check manually some values to make sure MMR  create a correct result, but i guess you have done this already.

upload your test file in dropbox or any cloud storage and then drop the download link here.

Also dont forget to open the access so expert PBI here can download your test file.

Thank you.