Text Input Slicer is not reset by bookmarks in Power BI Service while working correctly in Power BI

[mariussve1]

Hi,

I am experiencing inconsistent behavior between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service when using the new Text Input Slicer together with bookmarks.

The scenario is the following.

I am building a report that uses Translytical Task Flows, where a Text Input Slicer is used as a free text comment field. The value from the slicer is passed to a User Defined Function and written back to a data warehouse.

Because the Text Input Slicer is used as an input to a Translytical Task Flow, it becomes mandatory. This means the action button remains disabled until the slicer contains a value.

To support a proper user flow, I created a bookmark configured with selected slicers only. The purpose of the bookmark is to reset the report state after the task flow has executed.

In Power BI Desktop, this works as expected. When activating the bookmark, the Text Input Slicer is reset along with the other slicers.

However, after publishing the report to Power BI Service, the behavior changes. The same bookmark correctly resets all other slicers, but the Text Input Slicer keeps its previous value and is not reset.

This happens consistently and is fully reproducible.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a report with a Text Input Slicer

2. Use the Text Input Slicer as an input to a Translytical Task Flow

3. Create a bookmark with selected slicers enabled

4. Enter a value in the Text Input Slicer

5. Activate the bookmark in Power BI Desktop and observe that the slicer is reset

6. Publish the report to Power BI Service

7. Activate the same bookmark in the Service and observe that the Text Input Slicer is not reset

Expected behavior
The Text Input Slicer should respect bookmark state in Power BI Service in the same way as in Power BI Desktop, and be reset when included in a bookmark with selected slicers.

Actual behavior
In Power BI Service, the bookmark does not reset the Text Input Slicer, even though it resets all other slicers correctly.

Impact
This makes it very difficult to build a clean user experience around Translytical Task Flows. Since the Text Input Slicer is mandatory, users are effectively forced to manually clear or re enter text after each execution.

A common workaround would be to use a default placeholder value, such as a single space, and treat it as NULL in the UDF. However, because bookmarks do not reset the Text Input Slicer in the Service, this workaround also fails after publishing.

The Clear all slicers button does reset the Text Input Slicer, but it clears it completely. This disables the Translytical Task Flow action button again, so it does not solve the problem from a usability perspective.

Additional notes
This appears to be a Service specific issue, as the same report behaves correctly in Power BI Desktop.

[nikita9158]

I am facing same kind of issue

[mattlee]

Based on customer reporting, this seems to have resolved.

[mariussve1]

Hi @mattlee ,

Thank you for the update.

I would like to clarify the current status after additional testing.

The bookmark behavior is now working as expected. The Text Input Slicer is correctly reset by bookmarks both in Power BI Desktop and in Power BI Service.

However, I am now experiencing a different but related issue: the Translytical Task Flow does not recognize the value entered in the Text Input Slicer at all, regardless of what is typed.

Even when the Text Input Slicer clearly contains text, the Translytical Task Flow behaves as if the input is missing. In practice, this means the action button remains disabled or the task flow does not register that a required input has been provided.

To rule out configuration issues, I have deleted the report completely, rebuilt it from scratch, recreated the Text Input Slicer, recreated the Translytical Task Flow, and republished to the Service. The behavior remains the same after rebuilding everything from a clean state.

Could you please confirm whether there have been recent changes to how Text Input Slicers are evaluated as mandatory inputs in Translytical Task Flows, or whether this issue is known? At this stage, it still appears to be a Service-related problem.

Thank you for looking into this further.

Best regards,
Marius