How to Link Visuals in Power BI

A Power BI dashboard isn’t just a static collection of charts, it’s an interactive canvas for telling a story with data. The real power comes from making those visuals talk to each other, so a click on a single bar chart instantly updates every other report on the page. This article will walk you through exactly how to link your visuals in Power BI to create a dynamic and intuitive experience for anyone viewing your dashboard.

Why Bother Linking Visuals in Power BI?

Connecting your visuals - officially known as setting "interactions" - turns a one-way presentation into a two-way conversation with your data. Instead of just looking at numbers, users can actively explore them. Here’s why it’s a non-negotiable skill for any Power BI user:

• It Creates a Guided Analytics Experience: When a user clicks on a product category, they immediately see how that specific category trends over time, which regions it sells best in, and which customers buy it most. It allows them to follow their curiosity and uncover insights on their own without needing a separate report for every question.
• It Simplifies Complex Dashboards: Instead of overwhelming users with dozens of filters and slicers, linked visuals provide a clean, intuitive way to drill into the data. A simple click is all it takes to narrow the focus of the entire report page, reducing clutter and improving usability.
• It Tells a Cohesive Story: Linked visuals show cause-and-effect relationships. You can instantly see how a surge in marketing spend in one chart corresponds to a lift in website traffic in another. This connection is what transforms isolated data points into a meaningful narrative about business performance.
• It Boosts User Engagement: Let’s be honest: interactive dashboards are simply more engaging than static ones. When people can click, explore, and see data react in real time, they are more likely to spend time understanding the information and, more importantly, act on it.

Think of it as the difference between a flat PDF report and a hands-on analytical tool. By linking your visuals, you empower everyone - from executives to junior marketers - to find their own answers within the dashboard you built.

The Magic Behind Linked Visuals: Understanding Interactions

What seems like magic is actually a straightforward concept in Power BI called "Interactions". At its core, every data point on a Power BI visual can act as a filter for other visuals on the same page. When you click a slice of a pie chart or a bar on a column chart, you are essentially telling Power BI, "Filter the entire page by this selection."

By default, Power BI automatically tries to enable these interactions for you. Clicking on one visual typically causes all others to react, usually by highlighting the relevant data. However, default settings aren't always optimal. You might want one visual to be completely filtered while another remains unchanged. This is where manually editing interactions comes in.

You have three main choices for how a "target" visual should respond when you interact with a "source" visual:

1. Filter: This is the most common and powerful option. It completely filters the target visual to show only the data related to your selection. If you click on "Q4" in a sales-by-quarter chart, another visual showing sales by product will update to display data exclusively for Q4.
2. Highlight: This option maintains the context of the whole dataset. Instead of filtering out data, it highlights the portion that relates to your selection. If you click "Q4," the sales by product chart will show the total sales for all quarters but will highlight the part of each bar that came from Q4. This is great for seeing part-to-whole relationships.
3. None: This option tells the target visual to completely ignore the selection. The visual will remain static, no matter what you click elsewhere. This is perfect for high-level KPIs or cards, like "Total Revenue," that you always want to show the unfiltered, overall number.

Mastering these three options gives you complete control over the user experience and the analytical path you want to guide people on.

Step-by-Step: How to Control Visual Interactions in Power BI

Let's walk through a real-world example. Imagine you’re building a sales dashboard containing the following visuals on a single page:

• A Pie Chart showing "Sales by Product Category".
• A Line Chart displaying "Sales over Time".
• A Map visual showing "Sales by State".
• A Card visual for the total "Overall Sales Amount".

Our goal is to make it so that when a user clicks a category on the Pie Chart, the Line Chart and Map filter to show data only for that category, while the "Overall Sales Amount" card remains unchanged.

Step 1: Select the Source Visual

First, click on the visual that you want to be the "source" of the filter. This is the visual you expect your users to click on. In our case, that’s the Pie Chart ("Sales by Product Category").

Step 2: Find the "Edit Interactions" Button

With the source visual selected, a new contextual tab called Format will appear in the top ribbon. Click on this "Format" tab. In the "Interactions" group, you will see a button labeled Edit Interactions. Click it.

Step 3: Understand the Interaction Icons

Once you click "Edit Interactions," you'll notice small icons appearing in the top-right corner of all the other visuals on the page. These are the controls that let you define the relationship between your selected source visual (the Pie Chart) and each target visual. You will see a combination of:

• A filter icon (a funnel)
• A highlight icon (a pie chart with a highlighted slice)
• A none icon (a circle with a line through it)

Step 4: Configure Each Visual's Interaction

Now, you can define how each target visual should behave when a slice of the pie chart is clicked. Go to each visual one by one and select the desired interaction icon:

• For the Line Chart ("Sales over Time"): We want this chart to show the sales trend for only the selected product category. Find the interaction controls on the Line Chart visual and click the Filter icon.
• For the Map Visual ("Sales by State"): Similarly, we want the map to filter to show sales locations for only the selected category. Click the Filter icon in the header of the map visual.
• For the Card ("Overall Sales Amount"): This card should always display the grand total, regardless of what category is selected. Go to the interaction icons on the card visual and click the None icon.

Step 5: Turn Off "Edit Interactions" Mode and Test It

Once you've configured the interactions for all your visuals, click the Edit Interactions button again in the "Format" tab to exit the editing mode. The little icons on the visuals will disappear.

Now, test your work! Click on a slice in your "Sales by Product Category" pie chart. You should see the line chart and map instantly update to reflect your selection, while the total sales card remains unchanged. Click a different slice, and see them update again. This confirms your interactions are set up correctly.

Practical Tips and Common Scenarios

Once you understand the basics, you can apply this concept to create some very sophisticated reports.

Controlling Slicer and Filter Interactions

The "Edit Interactions" feature isn't just for charts. It works on Slicers, too. This is incredibly useful when you want a slicer to affect some parts of your report but not others. For example, you could have a date slicer that filters your main trend chart but doesn't affect a separate table showing "All-Time Top Products". Simply select the slicer, go to Format > Edit Interactions, and set the table's interaction to None.

Highlight vs. Filter: Which to Choose?

Your choice between these two options depends on the story you want to tell.

• Use Filter when the primary goal is detailed analysis. If a user clicks on "Canada", they are likely asking, "What were the sales trends within Canada?" A filtered view provides a clear, focused answer.
• Use Highlight when the goal is to show contribution or context. If the user clicks on "Canada," a highlighted view answers the question, "How much did Canada's sales contribute to our overall global sales?" It keeps the big picture in view while emphasizing a specific part of it.

Designing for an Obvious User Experience

Don’t make your users guess how the report works. A good design should make interactivity intuitive. Here are a few tips:

• Group related visuals together. A cluster of charts that all filter each other feels more logical.
• Use titles and text boxes to provide instructions. A simple line of text at the top, like “Click on a category or region to filter the dashboard,” can make a huge difference for first-time users.
• Be consistent. If you decide that bar charts on one page should filter line charts, try to stick to that pattern on other pages so the user experience is predictable.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to link visuals in Power BI is a fundamental step toward building truly valuable reports. By moving beyond static charts and controlling visual interactions, you create a dynamic environment where users can ask their own questions and find answers, all within a single, cohesive dashboard.

The goal of any great dashboard is to bridge the gap between raw data and clear insight as quickly as possible. While tools like Power BI are powerful, setting up these interactions and managing complex data models can involve a significant learning curve. At Graphed, we want to eliminate that friction entirely. Graphed allows you to connect all your data sources and create interactive, real-time dashboards just by describing what you want to see. Instead of manually editing interactions, you can simply ask, "Show me my sales by product, and when I click a product, show me its trend over time," and our AI builds it in seconds, helping you get directly to the insights without getting lost in the setup.