Hi,
I have a page with slicers across multiple dimensions. Is there any way to get to that page with a context that selects values (vs. filtering)? My client would like to be on another page and do a drillthrough, but once they get there, they would like to be able to change the selected values.
For example, when looking at a page and selecting a country and salesperson, could I somehow get to another page that shows country and salesperson as selected values in slicers that also allow the user to change those things (e.g. change countries at that point)?
I know I could expose the filter pane and instruct the users to clear the drillthrough filter and change what they want, but is there any way I can do this without exposing that? Currently, all of the client’s filtering is done via slicers (they’re not really Power BI users). This is a PBI Service implementation.
Open to any type of solution including cross-report drillthrough or something else. Including the second page’s visuals on the first page isn’t practical because both pages are very complicated.
What I’m trying to avoid is implementing two versions of the page, one for drillthrough and one for ad hoc selection using slicers. Harder for me and harder for the client to use.
Have you tried adding the desired slicers to your drill through page and then syncing slicers? I would think this would allow you to get to the drill through page and then further adjust the slicers at that end. Here are a couple of videos that I think will be useful:
Thanks, Brian. I do sync slicers across pages for persistent filters.
However, this is the case where they have a large matrix of data that they’re interested in and want to select context within that. I have a report page tooltip that is very useful as well as a drillthrough.
But, once they get to the drilled page, they really want the ability to change the “selection” that they came in with.
The solution I have used for similar situations in my reporting is to not hide the drill-through page. This makes it usable as a drill-through, and as an ad-hoc type of research area.
On this page is hidden a slicer connected to a disconnected customer table, and a table mimicking the drill through table, but using the value from the disconnected slicer. Via bookmarks, when you click on Filter New, it hides the original table and slicer and reveals the new one from which you can select a new customer slicer value and changes the button to allow you to return to the prior drill through state:
For illustrative purposes, I put the tables in different places on the page, but you could overlay them on top of each other so the fact is of the same table being “freed up” to pick a new slicer value.
I hope this is helpful. Full solution file attached.
Thanks, Heather. I actually hadn’t thought of that simple solution. That wouldn’t allow exactly what they’re asking for (drill through but then change filters), but it would allow them to either drill through or navigate to the page and pick their filters, right? I’ll have to experiment a bit with it. I imagine the back button would have to be present, true? Any other tricks or thoughts for that solution?
Thanks
John
Very clever, Brian. That seems like a workable way to get them exactly what they’re asking for.
I appreciate the detailed solution as well. Will probably present both your idea and Heather’s and see what they think.
Thanks!
John
Okay, this one really caught hold of my imagination. Scratch my prior solution – I think I’ve got a much better one here. Instead of faking the slicer, look what happens if you stick with sync slicers and fake the drill through with a page navigation button:
here’s the main screen unsliced:
now let’s select Army Group on the main slicer:
and then click the drill button, which will take us to the drill page with a synced slicer on customer name:
So far, so good – carries through the right total distributed by product.
now let’s change the customer on the detail page to Aldi Ltd (because the slicers are synced in both directions and this is not a true drill through, we are free to change the slicer value)
finally, hit the back button to return to the main page
And boom! It carries the revised slicer value back to the main page and updates the main sales table with the correct total value for the new customer.
I think this gets you exactly what you’re looking for in a much smoother, cleaner way than the bookmark approach I provided previously.
Actually - if you put the filters on the page, and sync them, then yes, it would allow them to drill-through and change filters. (The downside is that the synced filter would impact the original page) - that is exactly the solution that @Brian has included in his solution below.
The back button would exist, created when you first drill through in design mode (just as normal).
Note on buttons - the back button can be added to any report page through normal button creation. The only thing that ‘back’ does is to return the user to the prior page. With some of my simple two-page reports, this is a method I like to use to help my user navigate.
Other tips with this type of function is really in training your end-user, the back button will be present no matter what (unless you come up with a fancy way to mask it when the drill field is unfiltered), so this means you want your end-user to understand that the drill page is also accessible via normal navigation.
Thanks, Brian. I think that’s going to work great. I really appreciate all of the thought on it.
What I’m struggling with is why I didn’t think of it because that’s really how all my pages work.
I have a filter pane at the top that is persistent on all normal pages with a set of slicers synced across all of them.
I think I was just in the drill through mindset. This is why I so appreciate being able to bounce ideas back and forth on this forum.
Heather, just to clarify something you said, Brian’s solution requires that the target page not be a drillthrough (at least not on the fields that we’re talking about). If it is a drillthrough, the single selection would filter the slicer on the target page and would not allow other values to be selected.
