2024 Week 51 | Power BI: Highlight Data with a Slicer by Valerie Junk

Power BI, Workout Wednesday / By

Introduction

Welcome back to Workout Wednesday! This week, we’re shining a spotlight on an incredible solution shared by community member Valerie Junk. It’s always inspiring to see how ideas ripple through the community—Valerie’s post was sparked by none other than Nikola Ilic, a powerhouse of creativity and insight in our space. I’m continuing my theme of community gratitude, celebrating the way we all learn and grow from each other’s work.

Let’s dive into this week’s challenge and explore Valerie’s brilliant approach! Join us to recreate Valerie’s solution where she uses a slicer to highlight (rather than filter) a visual! If you’d like to read up on the why behind the solution, I encourage you to check out Valerie’s complete blog post on this topic!

Requirements

  1. Open the starter file and explore Valerie’s data. This challenge is awesome and so simple – we’re using a single table, a helper table and two measures!
    • Note that the numbered steps documented in Valerie’s starter file correlate directly with her original blog post.
  2.  Add a bar chart containing the Category and Profit fields
  3. Add a slicer containing the Category field
    •  Disable the filter interaction (in the format pane)
  4. Create a helper table that contains the same values as the original table
    • Hint: Helper Table = VALUES(Data[Category])
  5. Add an additional slicer using the Category field from your new table
  6. Sync your slicers
  7. Create a measure to count how many categories are chosen.
    • This measure will be used to format your bar chart.
  8. Create a second measure to assign a color when a value is selected (or deselected)
  9. Format your bar chart using conditional formatting and your new measures
  10. Hide the original slicer using the selection pane
  11. Ensure that all visuals meet the minimum standards of having alt text, that the tab order in your report makes sense, and that your color choices meet the minimum contrast standards.
 

Dataset

This week’s challenge uses a simple starter file rather than bringing data into Power BI desktop. Download the starter file.

Share

After you finish your workout, share on social media using the hashtags #WOW2024 and #PowerBI. On Twitter, tag @MMarie, @shan_gsd, @KerryKolosko. 

Also make sure to fill out the Submission Tracker so that we can count you as a participant this week in order to track our participation throughout the year.

Solution

Download this week’s solution file and watch Valerie’s tutorial on her blog! You can also play around with her published Power BI file (above) that contains written steps – it’s awesome!

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