How to Add Images to Slicer in Power BI

Adding images to slicers in Power BI transforms a standard report into an interactive and visually engaging dashboard. This simple touch makes it easier for users to instantly recognize and select categories, whether it's filtering by product, team member, or store location. This article provides a step-by-step guide on two effective methods for incorporating images into your Power BI slicers.

Why Should You Use Images in Power BI Slicers?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." While a standard text-based slicer is functional, an image-based slicer offers several distinct advantages that elevate your reports.

• Improved User Experience (UX): Humans process images much faster than text. Allowing a user to click on a product logo or a picture instead of reading from a list makes navigation quicker and more intuitive, especially for people who are less familiar with the data.
• Enhanced Engagement: Visuals are simply more interesting than lists of text. An apparel dashboard filtered by clicking on images of t-shirts, hoodies, and jackets is far more engaging than a simple dropdown menu. This keeps your audience focused and more likely to explore the data.
• Space Efficiency: In certain layouts, a grid of images can communicate options more compactly than a long, vertically-scrolling list of text entries. This helps you design cleaner, less cluttered report pages.
• Reduced Ambiguity: For product categories with similar names or for filtering by individual people, an image eliminates any confusion. Seeing a photo of the product or person provides immediate clarity.

Getting Your Data Ready: A Crucial First Step

To make images work in Power BI, you need your data set up correctly. This involves two key components: accessible image URLs and a correctly configured data model.

1. Your Images Need to be Accessible Online

Power BI can't directly use image files stored on your local computer. Instead, it needs to pull a publicly accessible URL for each image. This means your images must be hosted online where they can be reached via a simple web link.

Common hosting options include:

• Your company's website or content management system (CMS): If you sell products online, their image URLs are likely already available through your Shopify, WooCommerce, or company website infrastructure.
• Cloud Storage Services: You can use platforms like Azure Blob Storage, a public Amazon S3 bucket, Dropbox, or even GitHub. The key is that the direct link to the image must be public and not require a login to view.
• Image Hosting Services: Platforms like Imgur can work, but for business-critical reports, it’s best to use a service that you control to avoid broken links if an image is removed.

Once you have your images hosted, your data source (like an Excel file, SharePoint list, or SQL database) should include a column that contains the full URL for each corresponding item. For example, a Products table would have columns for ProductName and ProductImageURL.

2. Tell Power BI Your URLs are Images

After loading your data into Power BI Desktop, you need to explicitly tell the software that your text column of URLs should be treated as images. This is a critical step that many people miss.

1. Navigate to the Data view (the table icon on the left-hand pane).
2. Select the table that contains your image URLs from the Fields pane on the right.
3. Click on the header of the column containing the image URLs to select it.
4. Go to the Column tools tab at the top of the screen.
5. Find the 'Data category' dropdown menu and change it from 'Uncategorized' to Image URL.

Once you’ve set this data category, Power BI will know to render the content of that URL as a picture rather than displaying it as plain text. Now you're ready to build your visual slicer.

Method 1: Using the Default Table Visual as a Slicer

Believe it or not, you don't always need a custom visual to create an image slicer. You can cleverly use Power BI's default Table or Matrix visual to achieve a similar effect. This method is quick, easy, and doesn't require importing anything new.

This works because any data point within one visual can be used to filter others on the same page. When you click a row in a table, it filters the rest of the report accordingly.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Go to the Report View: Click the bar chart icon in the left-hand navigation pane.
2. Add a Table Visual: In the 'Visualizations' pane on the right, select the 'Table' visual and add it to your canvas.
3. Add Your Data Fields: Drag the field that represents your category (e.g., ProductName) and your Image URL field from the 'Data' pane into the 'Columns' bucket of the Table visual. You should now see rows with product names and images.
4. Format the Table to Look Like a Slicer: This is where you clean things up.

Now, when you click any row in this table, it will function as a slicer, filtering all other visuals on your report page. While it doesn't look exactly like a traditional button slicer, it's a highly effective and native solution.

Method 2: Using the Chiclet Slicer Custom Visual

For a more professional and customizable image slicer, the best approach is to use a custom visual from Microsoft's AppSource. The "Chiclet Slicer" is one of the most popular and versatile options available, widely trusted in the Power BI community.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Import the Custom Visual:
2. Add the Chiclet Slicer to Your Report: Click the new Chiclet Slicer icon to add it to your canvas.
3. Configure the Data Fields:
4. Customize the Slicer's Appearance: The Chiclet Slicer offers extensive formatting options that elevate it beyond the standard table visual.

The result is a highly polished, web-like filtering experience that instantly makes your report more user-friendly and professional.

Final Thoughts

Upgrading your Power BI slicers from simple text lists to interactive images is a fantastic way to boost your dashboard's usability and visual appeal. Whether you use the creative workaround with the default table visual or import a powerful custom visual like the Chiclet Slicer, the end result is a more intuitive and engaging experience for your audience.

Ultimately, a good dashboard presents complex data in a simple, actionable format. We built Graphed on that same principle—to eliminate the complexity of data analysis for marketing and sales teams. Instead of spending hours in tools like Power BI to connect data sources and configure visuals, our AI platform allows you to connect sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds and then simply ask in plain English for the exact dashboards and reports you need. Our goal is to give you back the time you spend building reports so you can focus on acting on the insights.