How to Reset Slicer in Power BI

Building an interactive Power BI report with multiple slicers gives users amazing flexibility to explore data, but it can quickly become a minefield of unchecked boxes and stray filters. After a user has sliced and diced the report into a dozen different views, returning to the default, unfiltered state often means tediously clicking through each slicer one by one to clear the selections. This article will show you exactly how to add a simple "Reset Slicer" button to your report to solve this problem for good.

Good Report Design Starts with a Seamless User Experience

Before jumping into the "how," it's important to understand the "why." You put a lot of effort into building insightful reports, but their value is lost if they are frustrating to navigate. A dashboard with five or ten different slicers for date, region, product category, and salesperson can easily leave a user with a messy, over-filtered view they can't escape.

Without a reset button, users have to remember and manually undo every selection. This leads to friction, confusion, and can even cause them to misinterpret the data because they're unaware an old filter is still active. A dedicated "Reset Slicers" or "Clear Selections" button provides a crucial piece of functionality by:

• Saving Time: One click is all it takes to clear every filter and return the report to its default state.
• Reducing Confusion: Users can confidently explore the data, knowing they have an easy way back to the starting point.
• Ensuring a Clean Slate: It guarantees that no hidden slicer selections are skewing the visuals, allowing for a fresh start to any new line of analysis.

In short, it’s a small addition that makes your report significantly more professional and user-friendly.

The Easiest Method: Using a Bookmark to Reset Slicers

The most straightforward and effective way to create a reset button in Power BI is by using the Bookmarks feature. A bookmark captures the state of a report page, including the current filters and slicer selections. By creating a bookmark of your report in its default, unfiltered state, you can then trigger it with a button. Here's how to do it step-by-step.

Step 1: Set Your Report to the Default State

First, you need to prepare your report page exactly as you want it to look when a user hits "Reset." This is the foundational step, and it's simple.

Go through every slicer on your report page and clear any active selections. Make sure dropdowns are set to "Select all," date ranges are reset, and any other filters are removed. Your visuals should display all the underlying data without any filters applied. This clean, default view is what your bookmark will "remember."

Step 2: Create a New Bookmark

With your report page in its clean, default state, it's time to create the bookmark that will save this view.

1. Navigate to the View tab in the Power BI ribbon at the top of the screen.
2. In the "Show panes" section, click to open the Bookmarks pane. A new panel will appear on the right side of your screen.
3. With your report page still in its default state, click the Add button within the Bookmarks pane.
4. Power BI will create a new bookmark, likely named "Bookmark 1." It's good practice to rename it immediately for clarity. Double-click the name and change it to something intuitive, like “Reset Slicers View” or “Default View.”

You have now successfully captured a "snapshot" of your report's cleared and unfiltered state.

Step 3: Insert a Button Onto Your Report

Now that you have your bookmark, you need a clickable object on the report canvas to trigger it. You can use an image, a shape, or one of Power BI's built-in buttons.

1. Go to the Insert tab in the ribbon.
2. Click on Buttons and select an option. The Blank button is incredibly versatile because you can fully customize its appearance. Let's use that for this example.
3. A blank button shape will appear on your report canvas. You can drag and resize it to place it wherever you like. A common practice is near the top of your slicer panel or in the top-right corner of the report page.

With the new blank button selected, the Format pane will open on the right. You can now customize it:

• Under Shape, change it from a rectangle to a pill shape or another design.
• Under Style, turn on Text and type "Reset Slicers" or "Clear All." You can adjust the font, color, and size.
• Experiment with other formatting options like Fill (background color), Border, and Shadow until the button fits your report's design.

Step 4: Connect the Button to Your Bookmark

This is the final step where you bring everything together and make the button functional.

1. Click on your newly designed button to select it.
2. In the Format pane, locate the Action section and toggle the switch to On.
3. Under Type, click the dropdown menu and select Bookmark.
4. A new dropdown menu named Bookmark will appear. Select the bookmark you created in Step 2 (e.g., "Reset Slicers View").
5. (Optional but recommended) In the Action section, you can add helper text in the Tooltip field. Something like "Click to clear all selections and reset the report" is helpful. When a user hovers over the button, this text will appear, explaining its function.

That's it! Your reset slicer button is now fully functional.

Testing Your New Reset Button

To test the button functionality in Power BI Desktop, you need to hold down the Ctrl key while clicking it. Apply a few filters across different slicers on your report, then Ctrl-Click your new "Reset Slicers" button. All your visuals and slicers should instantly snap back to their default, unfiltered state that you defined at the start of Step 1.

Once you publish the report to the Power BI service online, your user will be able to simply click the button — no need to use the Ctrl key.

Pro-Tips for an Even Better User Experience

Now that you have a functioning reset button, here are a few extra tips to make it even more intuitive for your end-users:

• Use a Recognizable Icon: Text is fine, but icons often communicate more quickly. Instead of writing "Reset," consider using an image of a refresh symbol (a circular arrow) or an "X." To do this, instead of adding text to your button, go to the Style menu in the Format pane, and under Icon, choose a type or your own imported, custom icon using Image. Make sure the placement and icon color fit the broader dashboard.
• Position the Button Intuitively: Place the button where users would expect to find it. This is usually in the corner of your dashboard or top-right of your main filter or slicer pane. Keeping your design aesthetic and UI clean gives your report-reader a much more engaging experience.
• Consider Resetting More Than Just Slicers: Remember that a bookmark captures the entire state of a page, not just the filter state. It notes how your visuals are currently sorted, which parts have been drilled down, and what is currently selected. The default bookmark setting helps you reset all that back at once, not just the slicer state. Just make sure the "saved view" of your bookmark is exactly what you aim for to take the user back to — default sort order and all. By deselecting the Data property checkbox in the Bookmark pane after you saved its state, you can choose what aspects of a saved visual state you are interested in resetting. But for our purpose of resetting slicers, Data must stay checked.

Final Thoughts

Adding a simple reset button with Power BI bookmarks transforms a potentially cluttered user experience into a clean and professional one. It’s a very beginner-friendly step that empowers anyone viewing your reports to explore the data freely, confident that they can always return to a reliable starting point with a single click. Adding in a custom button is also one of those small touches to make your project dashboard a little bit more aesthetic.

And while we're on the topic of improving the user experience by simplifying complicated tools — if you simply want great reporting and insightful dashboarding without doing all the grunt work of customizing Power BI bookmarks or dicing through multiple datasets, this is one of Power BI's inherent problems. We spent a lot of time creating Graphed because we believe your tools should be smarter, more helpful, and simpler to use. We don’t think great insights need to take a data science degree. Our goal at Graphed is to offer a simple-to-use platform so any size company can have beautiful custom reports without any technical experience.