Level 2 · Visual, page or report filter?

Slicers are filters readers click. The Filters pane holds the filters the report author sets, and each one has a scope: one visual, one page, or every page. Picking the wrong scope is how a report ends up showing cancelled orders on the page someone added last month.

What you are working in

This level is a quiz, and like the rest of this track it runs in a practice page, not in Power BI. To see the real thing in Power BI Desktop: open View → Filters if the pane is hidden (it sits between the canvas and the Visualizations pane). Select a visual and the pane shows three wells: Filters on this visual, Filters on this page and Filters on all pages. Drag a field from the Data pane into the well you want.

The three levels

well	reaches	use it for
Filters on this visual	one visual	a chart that shows a subset (top 10, one category)
Filters on this page	every visual on the page	a page about one year, one region
Filters on all pages	the whole report	rules that always hold: completed orders only, test data out

All three are just filters in the filter context, like a slicer selection. A measure on that chart sees the visual, page and report filters together, plus the slicers and its own row.

Filter types

When you expand a filter card you choose its Filter type:

• Basic filtering: tick the values to keep (completed, web, 2025).
• Advanced filtering: conditions such as contains, starts with, is greater than, is not blank, combined with And/Or.
• Top N: keep the top or bottom N items of a field ranked by a value. Drag products[name] into the visual’s well, set Filter type to Top N, Show items: Top 10, drag Sales into By value, then Apply filter. Top N is available only in Filters on this visual.
• Date fields also offer Relative date (last 30 days, this year), which moves with the calendar.

Filters pane or slicer?

A slicer is for choices the reader should make. A Filters pane filter is for choices the author has already made. You can lock or hide a filter card (the lock and eye icons on the card) so readers can’t change it, or can’t even see it. Use hiding sparingly: a hidden filter that excludes data is the classic reason two reports disagree.

Slicers can reach other pages too: View → Sync slicers lets you keep the same selection on several pages, or make the slicer visible on some and just applied on others.

Common mistakes

• One filter repeated on every page instead of a single report-level filter.
• Top N at the wrong level. You can’t set it for a page; filter the one visual that needs it.
• Top N without the right value. “Top 10 products” by count of rows is not top 10 by Sales. Always check the By value field.
• Forgotten filters. Before publishing, select each visual and read all three wells.