Power BI Input Slicer: Filter Your Reports with Typed Text
- admin
- May 21
- 5 min read
The Power BI input slicer is a visual filter that lets you type text directly into a report to filter data across all connected visuals. Instead of scrolling through a long dropdown list, your team types a keyword or label and every visual in the report updates instantly.
Now generally available in both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service, previously known as "text slicer" during its preview release, the input slicer is built for datasets with hundreds or thousands of unique values where a standard list-based slicer becomes impractical. This article walks you through both modes, all seven filter operators, how filter pills work, and when to use the input slicer over a standard slicer.
What Is the Power BI Input Slicer?
The Power BI input slicer is a text-based filter visual that lets users search and filter report data by typing freely, rather than selecting from a fixed list. With a standard slicer, your filter options are limited to values already present in the dataset. With the input slicer, you search by partial text, filter multiple values simultaneously, or detach it from any data column entirely to use it as a parameter input.
For teams newer to the platform, Power BI's features, benefits, and use cases provides useful context before exploring individual visuals. For a different approach to dynamic filtering, creating a dynamic slicer using field parameters gives you slicer options that change based on context. Here is how the input slicer and the standard slicer compare side by side.
Feature | Input Slicer | Standard Slicer |
|---|---|---|
How you filter | Type free text | Select from a list |
Filter source | Typed text | Dataset values only |
Best for | Data with many unique values | Data with a limited value range |
Partial text search | Supported | Not supported |
Filter multiple values | Supported | Depends on configuration |
The Two Input Slicer Modes
The input slicer behaves differently depending on whether you connect a data column to it.
Filter Mode (with a data column)
When you add a data column, the input slicer matches your typed text against values in that column using your chosen operator and filters all report visuals accordingly. Use this mode when you need to search your data and do not know exact values upfront.
Input Mode (without a data column)
Without a data column, the input slicer becomes a pure input control. It does not filter visuals on its own. Instead, it acts as a parameter that other measures or visuals can reference. This mode is useful for comment fields, approval values, or writeback scenarios in your report.
The 7 Filter Operators
Selecting the right operator determines how your typed text is matched against column data. Power BI gives you seven options, each suited to a different filtering need.
Contains all: Displays rows where all typed values appear in the field at the same time.
Contains any: Shows rows containing at least one typed value. This is the default operator.
Does not contain any: Excludes rows that contain any of the typed values.
Starts with any: Displays rows where the field begins with one of the typed values.
Does not start with any: Excludes rows where the field starts with any typed value.
Is any: Returns rows that exactly match one of the typed values.
Is not any: Excludes rows that exactly match any of the typed values.
How Filter Pills Work
After typing a value and pressing Enter, Power BI creates a filter pill for that value. Each pill represents one active filter, and multiple pills combine into a stacked filter applied across all visuals.
Each pill supports three actions:
Edit: Double-click a pill to modify the value without removing the filter.
Remove: Click the X on a pill to clear that individual filter.
Clustered pills: When filters stack up, Power BI groups them into clusters to keep the slicer readable.
To streamline how your whole report responds to slicer inputs, applying all slicers and clearing all slicers at once is a workflow technique worth combining with the input slicer on complex reports.
When to Use the Power BI Input Slicer
Use the Power BI input slicer when your dataset has too many unique values for a standard slicer to be practical. These are the specific situations where it is the right tool:
Your dataset has hundreds or thousands of unique values, making a standard slicer list impractical to browse.
You need partial text matching, for example searching part of a customer name, product description, or order reference.
You want to filter by multiple values at once, such as several specific order IDs or product categories.
You do not know exact values upfront and need flexible, free-text searching instead of a fixed list.
For datasets with a small, predictable set of values such as region names or product tiers, the standard slicer remains the better choice. The Power BI inventory dashboard is a good example of a report where the input slicer pays off: inventory data typically contains hundreds of unique SKUs that would make a standard slicer unusable.
Use Case: Wine Review Dataset and Customer Feedback Analysis
The wine review dataset is a practical example of where the input slicer delivers clear value. The dataset contains thousands of records, each with a free-text description, variety label, winery name, and province. Because the variety and winery fields carry hundreds of unique values, a standard slicer would produce an unusably long list.
With the input slicer and the contains any operator, an analyst types two or three grape variety names. Typing "Pinot" and "Cabernet" filters the report down to all matching records immediately. The bar chart updates to show only wineries and provinces relevant to those varieties.
This pattern applies directly to customer feedback data in business contexts. When your feedback dataset includes open-text fields such as survey responses, support ticket descriptions, or product reviews, your team types a keyword and instantly surfaces all records where that term appears. Rather than exporting to Excel for manual text searches, analysts work inside the report, combining multiple terms in a single slicer to compare topics or sentiment clusters side by side.
For a deeper look at extracting insights from unstructured customer text, analyzing Tokopedia customer opinions from thousands of social posts using AI sentiment shows what that pipeline looks like end to end.
Limitations to Know Before You Build
The input slicer currently has a few constraints worth noting before you design your report:
Text columns only: Numeric columns are not currently supported.
No right-click paste: Use Ctrl+V to paste text into the slicer input field.
Single vs. multiple values: Whether the slicer accepts one or multiple inputs is set by the report creator, not the end user.
Implement Power BI for Your Business with BI Solusi
BI Solusi helps businesses across Southeast Asia implement and optimize Power BI for real-world reporting needs. If your reports still rely on long dropdown lists or your analysts spend time manually looking up values, replacing those slicers with input slicers improves both speed and usability.
If you are evaluating your options, choosing the right Power BI implementation partner is a practical starting point. Contact our consultants to get started.
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