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How to Filter Multiple Values in Power BI

Cody Schneider••8 min read

Filtering your Power BI report by a single category is straightforward, but what happens when you need to see data for a specific group of products, regions, or campaigns all at the same time? Limiting your analysis to just one item at a time can hide bigger trends and valuable insights. This guide will walk you through several practical methods for filtering multiple values in Power BI, from simple slicers for your dashboards to more advanced techniques using DAX for deep-dive analysis.

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The Simplest Method: Using an Attribute Slicer

The most user-friendly way to enable multi-value filtering for yourself and others who will view your report is with a slicer. A slicer is an on-canvas visual that allows anyone to easily filter the data displayed in other visuals on the report page.

Here’s how to set one up for multiple selections:

  1. Add a slicer to your report: In the "Visualizations" pane, click on the Slicer icon to add a new slicer visual to your report canvas.
  2. Choose your data field: With the slicer selected, drag the field you want to filter by (for example, "Product Category," "Country," or "Campaign Name") from the "Data" pane into the "Field" well of the slicer’s visual settings.
  3. Enable multi-select functionality: By default, users need to hold the Ctrl key while clicking to select more than one item in a slicer. For a more intuitive experience, you can change this setting:

Once you’ve disabled "Multi-select with CTRL," simple checkboxes will appear next to each item in the slicer. Report viewers can now easily check or uncheck as many values as they need to see precisely the data they’re interested in, without any special instructions.

Pro Tip: Under "Slicer settings," you can also enable a "'Select all' option," which adds a handy top-level checkbox to instantly select or de-select every item in the list.

For Exact Lists: The Filters Pane and its Advanced Options

Sometimes you don’t need an interactive slicer on the canvas. Maybe you want to set a "hard-coded" filter on a specific visual, page, or even the entire report that isn’t easily changed by end-users. For this, the "Filters" pane is your best friend.

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1. Basic Filtering with Checkboxes

This is the most direct approach. Say you want a particular bar chart to only show data for North America and Europe:

  • Select the visual you want to filter.
  • In the "Filters" pane, find the section called "Filters on this visual."
  • Drag the "Region" field from your data into this section.
  • A filter card for "Region" will appear. Simply check the boxes for "North America" and "Europe."

The visual will now only display data for those two selected regions. You can apply the same logic to the "Filters on this page" or "Filters on all pages" sections for broader impact.

2. Advanced Filtering with "is one of"

What if you have a specific, lengthy list of values you need to filter on? Maybe your colleague just sent you a list of 50 specific Customer IDs to analyze in an email. Selecting them one by one would be incredibly tedious. This is where advanced filtering comes in handy.

  • Drag the field you need to filter (e.g., "Customer ID") into the "Filters" pane.
  • On the filter card header, click on the Filter type dropdown and switch from "Basic filtering" to "Advanced filtering."
  • In the "Show items when the the value" dropdown, select "is one of".
  • A text box will appear. Now, you can type or paste a list of values directly into this box. Each value should be on a new line.
  • Click "Apply filter."

This is an incredibly efficient way to analyze a precise subset of data without having to search and click on each value individually. It's perfect for when you need to act on a very specific selection of items.

Filtering with Precision Using DAX Measures

For complete control and dynamic filtering based on complex business rules, you’ll want to turn to DAX (Data Analysis Expressions). DAX is Power BI’s formula language. While it might look intimidating, it unlocks powerful new possibilities.

A common technique is to create a "flag" measure. This measure will return a 1 (or "true") if a row meets your criteria and a BLANK (or 0) if it doesn't. You can then use this simple measure to filter your visuals.

Example: Flagging Specific Product Categories

Imagine you want to create a report focused only on your "Apparel," "Footwear," and "Accessories" product categories. You can create a DAX measure to identify these rows:

  1. Go to the "Home" or "Modeling" tab and click "New Measure."
  2. Enter the following DAX formula:
Category Filter Flag = 
IF(
    MAX('Products'[Category]) IN { "Apparel", "Footwear", "Accessories" },
    1,
    BLANK()
)
  1. Confirm the measure creation.

Let's break this down: The IN operator checks if the current product's category (MAX('Products'[Category])) is present in the provided list. If it is, the measure returns 1, if not, it returns a BLANK. Blank values are ignored by Power BI visuals, making it an efficient way to filter.

To use this measure:

  • Select the chart or table you want to filter.
  • From the "Data" pane, drag your new Category Filter Flag measure into the "Filters on this visual" section of the "Filters" pane.
  • Set the filter condition to "is 1" and click "Apply filter."

Your visual is now filtered by a reusable DAX measure. You can apply this flag to any visual where you need this specific multi-value filter.

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The Pro Method: Using a Disconnected Table as a Filter Source

What happens when your list of values to filter by is long and changes frequently? Say you get a new list of high-priority SKUs from the sales team every week. Using the previous methods would be inefficient. The professional solution is to use a disconnected table - a helper table that isn't connected to your main data tables with relationships.

Step 1: Create Your Filter Table

First, get your list of values into Power BI as a separate table. The easiest way is using "Enter data" on the Home ribbon. You can simply copy a column from Excel (for example, a list of SKUs) and paste it into the "Enter data" window. Let’s call this new table "SKU Filter List" and the column "Priority SKU."

Step 2: Create a Slicer from the Disconnected Table

Add a new slicer to your report. Drag the "Priority SKU" field from your new SKU Filter List table into this slicer. Since the table isn’t connected to anything yet, this slicer won't do anything - that's what the next step is for.

Step 3: Create a DAX Measure to Link Slicer to Visuals

Next, we create another DAX flag measure. This measure will check which SKUs are selected in your new slicer and tell your visuals which rows from your main Sales table to show.

ShowSelectedSKU =
VAR SelectedSKUList = VALUES('SKU Filter List'[Priority SKU])
VAR CurrentSKU = MAX('Sales'[SKU])
RETURN
    IF(
        CurrentSKU IN SelectedSKUList,
        1,
        BLANK()
    )

This sounds complicated, but it's pretty simple: The measure first captures a list of all the values currently selected in your slicer. Then, for every row in your main visual (like a sales summary table), it checks if that row's SKU (CurrentSKU) is present in the list of selected filter SKUs (SelectedSKUList).

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Step 4: Apply the Measure as a Filter

Finally, select the main visual you want to control (e.g., your sales summary table). Drag your new ShowSelectedSKU measure to the "Filters on this visual" section, set the filter to show items when the value "is 1," and click "Apply."

Now, your interactive slicer - populated from a completely separate, easily updatable list - perfectly filters your main sales visuals. You can update the SKU Filter List any time without having to touch your DAX measures or data model.

Final Thoughts

From simple checkboxes in the Filters pane and user-friendly slicers to powerful DAX-driven flags, you now have a full toolkit to filter your Power BI reports by multiple values at once. Choosing the right method depends on your goal - whether you need an interactive report for a wide audience or a highly specific, hard-coded analysis for your own deep dive.

Mastering these skills is a great way to deepen your data analysis, but tweaking DAX and managing filters can become time-consuming, especially when your real goal is to get fast answers. This is where we’ve built Graphed to work differently. We built it so that you don't need to learn a complex BI tool. Instead of clicking through menus or drafting measures, you can ask for the exact report you need in plain English. For example, you could just ask, “Create a chart comparing sales revenue for products A, B, and C vs their Facebook ad spend this quarter,” and instantly get back an interactive dashboard that updates in real-time, pulling live data from all your connected marketing and sales platforms.

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