Visual Level Filter only works if same column added to Values

[DPT]

Somewhat new to Power BI. I'd like to filter by a column for a table visual. Let's say ColumnA. If I drag ColumnA to the Visual level filter bucket and choose a value my table does not filter by that column/value. However, if I keep that visual level filter in place and add ColumnA to Values the filter begins to work as expected. The issue is I don't want ColumnA displayed. Seems like this would be a common occurence? Also tried adding to Page/Report filters with the same results. Thanks in advance... 

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @DPT,

I cannot reproduce this problem on my side. Does ColumnA added to visual level filter belong to the same dataset where you dragged other columns from to table visual? Or ColumnA is from a related dataset? Besides, please re-create the visual for a test.

Regards,

Yuliana Gu

[Anonymous]

Hey @DPT

That's super weird. I just tested on my machine and it works just fine without adding the extra column. Are you running the most up-to-date version of Power BI (July 2018)? I can't think of what would cause this other than you're not actually using the right column in your filter, but I believe you! Lol

[Seward12533 · Accepted solution]

I’m assuming your only displaying column values from your table without any measure or aggregated values displayed. In this case PowerBI won’t filter. If you add the column your slicing onany measure or calculated aggregate to your table the filter will work.

If you want to use the hide column trick suggested earlier. You need to first have word wrap in columns turns off then just drag the column width to hide the displayed column you don’t want. (Near trick for sorting on something not displayed in your table)

The other option is to write a measure that returns one of your column values. Say you have column called Product Name. Rather than using product name write a measure called Produnt Bame Disply = FIRSTNONBLANK(table[Product Name])

[DPT]

Appreciate the responses. Kinda odd that filters don't work w/o an aggregate but good to know going forward..

[Seward12533]

Don’t know all the technical details but it has to do with the way the PowerBI data model works. The aggregate measures provide the context for filtering when there are relationships. Remember that the Measur is independent of any particular tables.

[sokg]

Reduce the size of that column.

[DPT]

It's holding single values. It's also a text column. Not really sure how to reduce the size of the column. Can you elaborate? 

[sokg]

Click and hold on the right side of the column and drag all the way to the left side of the column.