How to Reset Filters in Power BI

Building an interactive Power BI report is one thing, but making it truly user-friendly is another. If your users have to manually un-click a dozen different slicer options to get back to a clean slate, they're more likely to get frustrated than find insights. This tutorial will walk you through the easiest and most effective way to add a "Reset Filters" or "Clear All Slicers" button to your Power BI reports.

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Why You Need a "Reset Filters" Button

Imagine handing a new report to a stakeholder. It’s filled with powerful visuals and lots of slicers for region, date, product category, and campaign. Your stakeholder starts clicking around, exploring the data, and drills down to a very specific view. Now, they want to start a new line of inquiry from the beginning. How do they do that?

Without a reset button, their options are:

• Manually find and clear every single slicer they touched.
• Try to remember which "eraser" icon on each slicer heading resets it.
• Close the report and reopen it to get back to the default view.

None of these are ideal. A dedicated "Reset Filters" button solves this common usability problem with a single click. It gives your report users the confidence to explore freely, knowing they can always get back to the starting point without any hassle. It's a small touch that makes your report feel more like a professional, polished application and less like a complex spreadsheet.

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The Best Method: Using Bookmarks to Reset Filters

The most straightforward and flexible way to create a reset button in Power BI is by using the Bookmarks feature. A bookmark captures the current state of a report page, including its filters, slicers, and even the visibility of visuals. By creating a bookmark of your report's default, unfiltered state, you can then trigger it with a button.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step.

Step 1: Set Up Your Default Report View

First, you need to decide what “reset” means for your report. This is the "clean slate" you want users to return to when they click the button. Go to the report page where you want the reset button to function.

• Clear Existing Slicers: Make sure no values are selected in any of your slicers. If you have "Select all" enabled, ensure it's selected. If not, make sure they are cleared entirely so the report shows data for all values.
• Remove Visual Filters: Check the Filters pane to ensure no temporary filters are applied to specific charts or the entire page.
• Adjust Other Visuals: If you use drill-downs, make sure your visuals are drilled back up to their top level.

Your goal is to make the page look exactly as you want it to when a user first lands on it or after they’ve cleared all selections. This is the state you're going to save in a bookmark.

Step 2: Create a New Bookmark

Once your report page is in its perfect default state, you need to save this view as a bookmark.

1. Navigate to the View tab in the Power BI Desktop ribbon.
2. Click on the Bookmarks button to open the Bookmarks pane on the right side of the screen.
3. Inside the Bookmarks pane, click Add. A new bookmark will appear with a generic name like "Bookmark 1".
4. Double-click the new bookmark to rename it. A descriptive name is crucial for managing your report. Let’s call it "Reset_Filters_State".

Now, let’s configure the bookmark's behavior. Click the three dots ( ... ) next to your new bookmark name. You'll see several options, but two are most important for creating a reset button:

• Data: This is turned on by default. It means the bookmark will save the current filter and slicer settings. You want to keep this enabled.
• Display: This saves things like the visibility and spotlight of visuals. It’s usually best to uncheck this one. If you disable "Display," the reset button will clear filters without changing which visual a user might have selected, providing a smoother experience.

You can also choose whether the bookmark applies to "All visuals" or "Selected visuals." For a full-page reset, leave it set to "All visuals."

After adjusting the settings (we recommend unchecking "Display"), click outside the menu to save them. Your bookmark is now ready.

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Step 3: Add a Button to Your Report Canvas

With your bookmark configured, you now need a clickable element for users to interact with.

1. Go to the Insert tab in the ribbon.
2. Click the Buttons dropdown. You can choose a pre-styled button (like a "back" arrow) or select a Blank button for full customization. A blank button is often the most flexible.
3. Position the blank button somewhere convenient on your report canvas, such as in the header or near your slicers.

Now, let's make it look like a reset button. With the button selected, the Format pane will appear on the right.

• Under Button > Shape, you can change the button shape (e.g., to a rounded rectangle).
• Under Button > Text, turn the toggle On. In the Text field, type something like "Reset Filters" or "Clear All." You can customize the font, size, and color here.
• Under Style, you can set the hover and pressed states, like changing the color slightly when a user mouses over the button to show that it's clickable.

Step 4: Link the Button to Your Bookmark

This is where you connect the button to the bookmark you created in Step 2.

1. Select the button you just styled.
2. In the Format pane, find the Action section and turn the toggle On.
3. In the Type dropdown, select Bookmark.
4. A new Bookmark dropdown will appear. Select the bookmark you created earlier: "Reset_Filters_State".

As a final user-friendly touch, you can add a tooltip that explains what the button does. In the Action section, enter a description in the Tooltip field, such as "Click to clear all selections and view the default report." When a user hovers over the button, this text will appear.

Step 5: Test Your New Reset Filters Button

Always test your new feature to make sure it works as expected.

1. Apply several different filters using your slicers. Select a specific date range, a product category, and a region. Click on a data point in a chart to cross-filter other visuals.
2. Now, test the button. In Power BI Desktop, you need to hold down Ctrl and click the button to trigger its action. (Once published to the Power BI service, your users will only need a single click).
3. If everything was set up correctly, all your slicers and filters should instantly revert to the default state you defined in your bookmark. The report should look exactly as it did back in Step 1.

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An Alternative: Using the "Clear Selections" Eraser Icon

It's worth noting that Power BI has a built-in feature to clear selections on a per-slicer basis. You can enable a small "eraser" icon in the header of any slicer.

To enable it:

1. Select a slicer.
2. Go to the Format your visual pane.
3. Expand the Slicer header section.
4. Turn on the Show 'clear selections' icon option (it might be a toggle or within the options).

While this is useful, it only clears selections for one slicer at a time. It doesn't solve the core problem of a user wanting to reset the entire report page with a single click, which is why the bookmark method is generally superior for building a comprehensive and user-friendly report.

Final Thoughts

Adding a "Reset Filters" button using bookmarks is a simple yet high-impact way to improve the usability of your Power BI reports. It empowers your audience to explore their data without fear of getting lost and ensures everyone can easily return to a common, default starting point. This small change goes a long way in making your reports more professional and accessible.

Building intuitive, easy-to-navigate reports is a core part of effective data analysis. At Graphed, we handle this experience for you automatically. Instead of needing to manually add usability features like reset buttons, you can connect your data sources and use simple, natural language to create entire dashboards in seconds. We believe asking questions about your data should be as easy as having a conversation, so you spend your time on insights, not on report configuration.