How to Select All in Power BI Filter

Building an interactive report in Power BI is a great feeling, but sometimes a seemingly simple feature can turn into a real head-scratcher. If you've ever set up a slicer and found yourself wondering, "Where is the 'Select All' button?", you're not alone. This article will walk you through a few different ways to give your users the ability to select all options in a filter, from a simple settings toggle to a more elegant custom button.

Why Doesn't Every Slicer Have a "Select All" Option by Default?

First, let's address why this isn't always a one-click option. Power BI's design philosophy is about interaction and refinement. When you click an item in a slicer, you're filtering the report. When you don't click anything, the report is already showing all the data - it's in an unfiltered state. In that sense, "no selection" is the default "select all."

However, this isn't always intuitive for users. People are used to checkboxes and buttons that explicitly say "Select All," especially after they've already started filtering and want to quickly revert. Fortunately, you have a few ways to add this functionality back in, and we'll cover the most practical methods here.

Method 1: The Easy Fix - Enable the 'Select all' Option in Slicer Settings

For most List and Dropdown slicers, Power BI has a built-in option to add a "Select all" choice. It's just hidden in the settings and turned off by default. This is the quickest and easiest way to solve the problem.

Let's assume you have a report with a slicer for "Product Category." Here’s how to enable the "Select All" option:

1. Select the Slicer: Click on the slicer visual on your report canvas to select it. The Visualization pane on the right-hand side will now show the settings for that specific slicer.
2. Go to Formatting Options: In the Visualization pane, click on the paintbrush icon labeled 'Format your visual'.
3. Find Slicer Settings: Expand the 'Slicer settings' section. Under 'Selection', you'll see a few options that control how users can interact with the slicer.
4. Toggle 'Show "Select all"': Look for the option named 'Show "Select all"' and switch the toggle to 'On'.

That's it! A new option labeled "(Select all)" will immediately appear at the top of your slicer list. Now, your users can easily click this to select every item in the list or deselect it after making a few choices to clear their selections.

When to use this method:

• You're using a slicer with a 'List' or 'Dropdown' style.
• You just need a simple, straightforward way for users to select all items.
• You don't need fancy buttons or advanced reset functionality across your entire report page.

This simple toggle solves the issue most of the time, providing a user-friendly experience without any complex setup.

Method 2: Create a Universal "Reset Filters" Button with Bookmarks

Sometimes, your report is more complex. You might have several slicers, and you want to give a user one master button to clear all filters on the page and return to the default, "all selected" view. This makes your report feel more like a custom application. The Bookmarks feature is perfect for this.

Bookmarks in Power BI capture the current state of a report page - including filter and slicer selections. We can create a bookmark for the clean, unfiltered state and then link a button to it.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Reset Button:

Step 1: Get Your Report Page to the Desired State

First, set up your report page exactly as you want it to look when a user clicks "Reset." This means clearing selections from any slicers you want to reset. You can do this by clicking the small "Clear selections" eraser icon that appears on the slicer header when you hover over it.

Step 2: Create the Bookmark

1. Navigate to the View tab in the Power BI ribbon at the top of the screen.
2. In the 'Show panes' section, check the box for Bookmarks. This will open the Bookmarks pane on the right.
3. With your report page in its cleared state, click the Add button in the Bookmarks pane. A new bookmark will appear.
4. Rename it to something descriptive. Double-click "Bookmark 1" and change its name to something like "Reset All Filters".
5. Important: Click the three dots (...) next to your new bookmark name and make sure the "Data" option is checked. This ensures the bookmark saves the current filter and slicer state (which is the "cleared" state you just set). You might also want to uncheck "Display" if you don't want the bookmark to affect which visuals are hidden or visible.

You have now saved the "all selections" state of your page as a bookmark.

Step 3: Add a Button to Your Report

1. Navigate to the Insert tab in the top ribbon.
2. In the 'Elements' section, click on Buttons and choose a button type. A 'Blank' button is often the most flexible for customization.
3. Drag the button to where you want it on your report canvas.

Step 4: Link the Button to Your Bookmark

1. Select the button you just added. The 'Format' pane will appear on the right.
2. Under 'Button', expand the Style section and add some text to your button, like "Reset Filters" or "View All." Customize the font, color, and background to match your report's design.
3. Next, toggle the Action option to 'On'.
4. Expand the 'Action' section. For 'Type', choose Bookmark.
5. For 'Bookmark', select the "Reset All Filters" bookmark you created earlier.

Now, test it out! Click a few items in your different slicers to filter your report. Then, hold Ctrl and click your new "Reset Filters" button (in Power BI Desktop, you need to Ctrl-click to activate buttons, once published, it's just a regular click for users). All the slicers linked to your bookmark should instantly clear, returning the report to its default view. This is a much more robust solution for dashboards with multiple filters.

Method 3: Go Advanced with a DAX "Select All" Measure

This method is a bit different. It's less about a physical "Select All" button and more about creating a measure that ignores the slicer's filter context. This is incredibly useful when you want to show a filtered value in relation to the total value.

For example, you might want a Card visual that shows a product category's sales, but you also want to see what percentage of total sales that category represents. Without a special measure, your "total" would always be filtered by what is selected in the slicer.

This is where DAX functions like CALCULATE and ALL come in handy.

Let's say you have a basic measure for sales:

Total Sales = SUM(Sales[Revenue])

If you filter by a specific product category in a slicer, a card using this measure will only show the sales for that category. To create a measure that always shows the total sales, regardless of the slicer, you can write this:

Overall Total Sales = CALCULATE([Total Sales], ALL('Products'[Category]))

Breaking Down the Formula:

• CALCULATE([Total Sales], ...): This is the workhorse of DAX. It tells Power BI to calculate the 'Total Sales' measure but with a modified filter context.
• ALL('Products'[Category]): This removes any filters currently applied to the 'Category' column in the 'Products' table. Even if a user selects "Electronics" in the slicer, this measure will ignore that filter and calculate the total across all categories.

You can then place both measures on your report. For instance, you could use two Card visuals: one showing 'Total Sales' (which will update based on the slicer) and one next to it showing 'Overall Total Sales' (which will remain static). This gives users powerful context - they can see not only the selected value but also how it compares to the complete total.

When to use this method:

• You need to show a filtered value alongside an unfiltered total for comparison.
• You want to calculate things like "percent of total" where the total shouldn't change with slicer selections.
• You want to maintain a "grand total" view somewhere on the dashboard that is immune to certain filters.

Final Thoughts

Whether you need a quick fix or a more sophisticated control system, Power BI provides the tools to manage filter selections effectively. You can enable the simple 'Select all' toggle for basic use cases, implement a robust "Reset Filters" button using bookmarks for complex reports, or use DAX measures to give your filtered data important context.

We believe that getting insights from your data shouldn't be a struggle. While these tweaks make Power BI more user-friendly, we've designed Graphed to bypass the setup hassle altogether. Instead of building slicers and reset buttons, you can connect your data sources and simply ask questions in plain English, like "what were my total sales last month?" or "compare sales for electronics versus clothing." Our AI-powered analyst handles the filtering in the background and builds live dashboards for you in seconds, letting you focus on the insights instead of the clicks.