Sync slicer bug with wrong Fields

[C4YNelis]

Hi all,

There is a bug when using the sync slicer option (there are multiple imho, though some are said to be "by design", however, this one definitely is not). What happens is that slicers of a report can actually slice a different table than the table used in the slicer.

No, this is not about ghost-slicers, I'm all too familiar with those. It's not about relationships between tables either, since there are none active.

As far as I know, the bug is in Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service both. What happens is that when using a slicer and selecting a value, other visuals (that ought to be sliced), are not sliced correctly (and no, this also has nothing to do with "edit interactions" between visuals). When checking the active filters on the visual that ought to be affected by the slicer, it shows me a filtervalue alright, just for a different table (with the same fieldname).

So, I have a table1[field to be sliced] and a table2[field to be sliced], where the fields have identical names (different values though). Adding table1[field to be sliced] to the slicer and slicing it with a value, results in other visuals (such as a table on the same page) being sliced by table2. I see this when I hover over the filter-icon of the table. It actually tells me it's table2[field to be sliced] filtering the table?

The solution is not difficult, because when going back to Power BI Desktop, selecting the slicer I see the table1[field to be sliced] field being used in the slicer. deselecting this and adding it again to the slicer (effectively not changing anything), solved the issue. However, this is also where things get interesting, because after I fixed it, the issue shifted to the next page and the next set of tables (table 2 and 3)? Repeating this however solved the problem again and that's where it stopped.

What I have done, I have built a survey form in Power BI, that asks twenty questions and provides a summary and shows all questions, chosen answers and that provides immediate feedback. Originally, this was one list, with twenty questions and five answers each. However, do to the elaborate DAX code I would take, building this into one giant "OR slicer functionality" I went with a solution with 20 separate slicers, deciding to dice the table into 20 small tables. One for each question. Effectively all called: "Question01" up till Question20, all with the same fields. Now I know what you are all thinking: "don't build surveys in Power BI." I know, however, that's not the issue here. No need to store the results anyway, I use it for trainings. Besides, for me, this took less time than it would have otherwise.

Now building this, I started with one page per question and page navigator that calculated the next page (something like 1, 2, ... , 20, results). This works just fine. I built the first page, added the slicer for Table01[field to be sliced] and duplicated the page to edit this into the second question page. I suspect this is where Power BI is starting to have a problem with my methods. Before I found the best way to do this, I copied slicers, changed fields, actually deleted and rebuild a slicer and experienced my fair share of ghost slicers. In the end though, this was all solved and there was a quick and efficient way of copying the pages including slicers (including all layout choices, which were very different from the settings in my theme-file), which just a few changes to be made per duplicated page.

In order to change the field for the copied slicer to the same field from a different table (for question02), I had to change the group name of the slicer to Question01 and Question02 respectively. If I wouldn't have, it would've changed slicer01 on the original page too.

Unfortunately I didn't take any printscreens.

Cheers,

Niels

[Anonymous]

Hi @C4YNelis ,

I appreciate you pointing out the problem, but I'm confused about your ghost slicer statement,

“What happens is that slicers of a report can actually slice a different table than the table used in the slicer. ”

I don't quite understand what it means. Would you be able to show a screen gif if that's convenient?

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Caitlyn

[C4YNelis]

Hi @Anonymous ,

thank you for your quick response. I've actually managed to find the root cause of this issue, which is maybe still by design, however, imho, this is at the very least very confusing behaviour.

The mismatch is caused by choosing the wrong moment to change the groupname. I have probably unintentionally changed some values after/before changing the group name (remember I have been duplicating pages). Please find below a GIF to demonstrate this issue. To illustrate things, I've made the slicer visible, but keep in mind that normally, the synced slicer on the results page is hidden ("resultaten" in Dutch), which makes this behaviour very confusing and hard to understand.

My personal advise would be to:

1. always "resync" slicers whenever a slicer is synced (to prevent the issue mentioned here).

2. resync all hidden properties, such as titles. Right now, when a synced slicer is hidden (effectively a hidden copy on a different page), titles don't synchronize with the "original" slicer, resulting in mismatches in names, for instance in the Selection pane, which is extremely confusing at times.

3. delete "ghost" (hidden synced copies of) slicers on different pages when the original synced slicer is deleted or "unsynced".

And, while you're at it: 😉

4. include an OR option for slicers 😉 (I know, I'm way out of scope of my issue here).

5. Allow different colors for items (selections) in slicers, so that we don't need custom visuals just to change a color. 

6. Allow a "clear selections" option, not just in the header, but optionally in the title. Right now, we always need to include the header, just to have a clear selections option, often resulting in double names, or breaking with layout conventions.

7. Allow a deselected mode (as to initially present users with a blank slicer) for single select slicers.

Demonstrating the out-of-sync behaviour of "synced slicers"

Thank you for your time and help, I hope this explain the issue in a better way.

Cheers,

Niels

[Anonymous]

Hi @C4YNelis ,

Your explanation is very clear and I understand what you mean. But unfortunately this is indeed a design challenge.
It's a great offer. But the issue forum is not the right place. If you would like to suggest  feature improvements, you may  vote the idea and comment here  to improve this feature. It is a place for customers provide feedback about Microsoft Office products . What’s more, if a feedback is high voted there by other customers, it will be promising that Microsoft Product Team will take it into consideration when designing the next version in the future.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Caitlyn