How to Add Search Box in Power BI

Adding a search box to your Power BI reports lets users quickly find the information they need, making your PBI dashboards more like interactive applications. This article will show you several ways to add search functionality, from the simple, built-in slicer to more powerful custom DAX solutions.

Why Is a Search Box in Power BI So Important?

Imagine your sales team is looking at a report with thousands of customer names or product SKUs. Scrolling through an endless list to find a specific entry is time-consuming and frustrating. A search box transforms this experience by turning a passive report into an active tool your team can use to pull specific data points in seconds.

Here’s why it's a difference-maker for your end-users:

• Improved User Experience: It puts the user in control, allowing them to instantly filter down massive datasets to only what's relevant to them.
• Time-Saving: Instead of manually scanning rows or applying multiple filters, users can type what they’re looking for and get immediate results. This efficiency is critical for users who need to make quick decisions.
• Enhanced Interactivity: Search functionality encourages users to engage with your reports more deeply. Having the ability to explore your information more easily makes the whole PBI dashboard feel more intuitive, especially for less technical audiences.
• Reduced Clutter: By allowing users to pull up data on demand, you can often design less-cluttered visuals knowing that the details are just a search away.

Ultimately, adding a search box is one of the easiest ways to increase the adoption and value of your Power BI reports across your company without having to overhaul your datasets or data models.

Method 1: The Simple Search Slicer (Best for Beginners)

The most straightforward method for adding a search box uses the native Slicer visual in Power BI. This approach works perfectly for searching a single column of text data, like product names, customer names, or city locations.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Let's say you have a table visual showing sales data and you want to be able to search for specific products.

1. Add a Slicer Visual: In the Visualizations pane on the right, click on the Slicer icon to add it to your report canvas.
2. Assign a 'Field' for the Slicer to Use: With the slicer selected, drag the field you want to search (for instance, the "Product Name" column from your data table) into the "Field" section of the Visualizations pane.
3. Activate the Search Option on the Slicer: Your slicer will likely appear as a list of options by default - we need to turn it into a searchable list. Luckily, Power BI makes this simple:

That's it! Now, when a user types into that search box, the list in the slicer and any connected visuals on the page will automatically filter to show results containing that text. It's the fastest way to add a search box when you need basic, out-of-the-box functionality in a PBI dashboard.

Method 2: Using the Power Query Editor (For Very Large Datasets)

What if your dataset is massive - millions or even tens of millions of rows? Loading all that data into a visual and then filtering can strain your report's performance. The Power Query approach filters the data at the source, before it's loaded into the data model. This means faster report loading times, but with a less interactive search experience for the end user.

So, use this method when performance on truly massive datasets is your top priority.

Here's how to do it:

1. Open Power Query: In the Home ribbon of Power BI Desktop, click on Transform data. This will open the Power Query Editor.
2. Create a Parameter: In the Power Query home ribbon, choose Manage Parameters > New Parameter. This dialog box is our starting point:
3. Apply the Parameter to a Text Filter: Select the query (table) containing the column you want to filter in the Queries pane on the left side of the Editor. Here we apply the brand-new Power Query parameter directly to the table.
4. Closing time: Click Close & Apply in the top-left corner of the Power Query menu to save your changes and take a step back into Power BI Desktop.

Now, how your user uses it is a bit different. They need to go to the Power BI Ribbon menu and hit Home > Transform data > Edit parameters and can type a new search term there. Then they hit the "OK" button and then hit the "Refresh" button in Power BI to update all of the report's visuals - the reloading process kicks in with the filter already applied, so your report feels nice and smooth.

Method 3: Create an Advanced “Wildcard" Search with DAX (Most Flexible)

The standard slicer is great, but its search function is pretty limited without a ton of additional formatting opportunities. What if you wanted a "contains" search, not just matching from starting characters to find products no matter where the search term might show up?

With a little bit of DAX code, you can build a more powerful, flexible search box that behaves exactly how you want it, giving you even more formatting and customization options to create the right experience for your stakeholders.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Step 1: Create a Disconnected Search Input Table: In the Home ribbon, choose Enter data. This creates a tiny, self-contained disconnected table, completely separate from the other data sources on our canvas. It acts like a temporary holding pen for whatever someone is actively searching for at the moment.
2. Step 2: Place this new column on your report canvas via a Slicer Visual: Just like our first example, add the basic Slicer visual to the report canvas. Drag your new SearchTerm column from the new table into the Field section in the Visualizations Pane to turn it into a Search box.
3. Step 3: Write Your DAX Filtering Measure: Now, let's make our filter magic work. Click the New Measure button from the Top Ribbon Menu and write a DAX equation like the following to create this measure:

Search Filter Metric = 
VAR SearchedValue = SELECTEDVALUE('Search Input'[SearchTerm])
RETURN
    IF(
        ISBLANK(SearchedValue),
        1,
        IF(
            SEARCH(
                SearchedValue, 
                MAX('Products'[Product Name]), 
                1, 
                0
            ) >  0, 
            1, 
            0
        )
    )

Explanation Breakdown:

• VAR SearchedValue - Stores whatever users type in your search box slicer to be used throughout the rest of this measure! SELECTEDVALUE is what makes all this happen.
• If(ISBLANK(SearchedValue)): If that search box is still empty, show everything. Don't filter. Return a Value of '1'.
• SEARCH: This part is the real work... here we actually have to look at each single row and determine if it's a match or not. This checks the search term from the first line versus every product name one at a time. It returns a match if the result is positive. Returns 0 if not.
• If(The SEARCH Result Is a Match?), Then also Return a Value of 1. Otherwise, return that 0 value.

1. Step 4: Apply the Measure to Filter: Select your table visual that shows sales and product data, and in the Filters Panel on the right, drag the Search Filter Metric onto the Filters for this Visual section. Now, expand that dropdown, select "1", and apply.

Now, typing "shirt" into your search box will filter the table on any product that contains that word anywhere in its name like "Tee Shirt", "Long Sleeve Shirt", or "Poly Shirt" - much more advanced than just having that regular search box. It feels more flexible because it is!

Best Practices for Implementing a Report Search Box

• Be User-Centric when Choosing the Placement: Place the search box in a leading and intuitive spot on your page, like at the top of the page or above its main filtering column. Make it obvious what people should type in there too by using a good headline for your slicer visuals like "Search For Products Here."
• Keep A Focus on Being Performance and Responsive: For huge datasets, remember the Power Query method can pre-filter data before the report load and avoid slowing down users' experiences. Test how long filters take to apply!
• Test It! Get testers from another team to see how they use your report too. Before releasing your report to everyone in the company, make sure you have a friend try and 'break it!' Have them test various search terms with caps lock vs lowercase and even with typos to ensure the results remain consistent.

Whichever method you choose, the goal is the same: make your report a better tool for your business users to get their jobs done!

Final Thoughts

Adding a search functionality is not just about making things look cool. It's about empowering the users that look at your reports so they have more confidence and speed in getting to the information they actually need day-to-day so they can keep moving the business forward.

While getting into the nitty-gritty of Power BI is always going to be a super valuable skill, marketing, sales, and e-commerce teams often need to stitch their Google Analytics, Shopify, Salesforce, and HubSpot data into just one report without getting bogged down in all of the technical projects. We built Graphed to handle exactly that type of data wrangling. We wanted a tool that could unlock our own data and make reporting faster. We turned those hours-long processes into a quick 10-second conversation and we can't wait for you to try it too.