Rules / Report Design

Slicer saved with a selection

info SLICER_SELECTION_SAVED · built in · report layer · scope: Visual

What it checks

Slicers saved with a selection, so that the report opens with it applied: any visual whose visual.json holds a filter with a condition under objects.general, which is where Power BI Desktop saves the selection of a slicer, button slicer, list slicer, input slicer, or filterSlicer, and of a custom slicer from AppSource that filters through the Visual Filters API. It is info without a policy, and a warning when the project's policy expects no saved selections.

Each finding names the slicer, as slicer (096193) on "Overview", or as "Region" on "Overview" when it has a title, at the line of the selection's filter in its visual.json, and its detail reads opens with this selection applied. A custom slicer with no title is named by the type its visual.json gives it, as ChicletSlicer1448559807354 (3f9a1c) on "Overview".

Example

Without a policy the finding is info. The config below applies to both documents and sets the policy, expect set to none, which raises the finding to a warning.

pbiplint.config.json

{
  "rules": {
    "SLICER_SELECTION_SAVED": { "expect": "none" }
  }
}

Fires the rule in visual.json

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/fabric/item/report/definition/visualContainer/2.8.0/schema.json",
  "name": "096193a525ec376a0147",
  "position": { "x": 432, "y": 222, "z": 10000, "height": 62, "width": 416, "tabOrder": 10000 },
  "visual": {
    "visualType": "slicer",
    "query": {
      "queryState": {
        "Values": {
          "projections": [
            {
              "field": { "Column": { "Expression": { "SourceRef": { "Entity": "Sales" } }, "Property": "Region" } },
              "queryRef": "Sales.Region",
              "nativeQueryRef": "Region",
              "active": true
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "objects": {
      "data": [
        { "properties": { "mode": { "expr": { "Literal": { "Value": "'Basic'" } } } } }
      ],
      "general": [
        {
          "properties": {
            "orientation": { "expr": { "Literal": { "Value": "1D" } } },
            "filter": {
              "filter": {
                "Version": 2,
                "From": [{ "Name": "s", "Entity": "Sales", "Type": 0 }],
                "Where": [
                  {
                    "Condition": {
                      "In": {
                        "Expressions": [
                          { "Column": { "Expression": { "SourceRef": { "Source": "s" } }, "Property": "Region" } }
                        ],
                        "Values": [[{ "Literal": { "Value": "'West'" } }]]
                      }
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

After the fix in visual.json

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/fabric/item/report/definition/visualContainer/2.8.0/schema.json",
  "name": "096193a525ec376a0147",
  "position": { "x": 432, "y": 222, "z": 10000, "height": 62, "width": 416, "tabOrder": 10000 },
  "visual": {
    "visualType": "slicer",
    "query": {
      "queryState": {
        "Values": {
          "projections": [
            {
              "field": { "Column": { "Expression": { "SourceRef": { "Entity": "Sales" } }, "Property": "Region" } },
              "queryRef": "Sales.Region",
              "nativeQueryRef": "Region",
              "active": true
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "objects": {
      "data": [
        { "properties": { "mode": { "expr": { "Literal": { "Value": "'Basic'" } } } } }
      ],
      "general": [
        {
          "properties": {
            "orientation": { "expr": { "Literal": { "Value": "1D" } } }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

The Region slicer was saved with West selected, so every reader starts with the page filtered to the West region, and the finding reads slicer (096193) on "Overview" with opens with this selection applied. The fix clears the selection, which takes the filter out of objects.general and leaves the slicer's other settings as they were.

Why it matters

A slicer narrows what the other visuals show, and its selection is saved with the report: "The slicer saves the selected values," in the words of Microsoft's troubleshooting guidance, which goes on to warn: "Report authors should avoid saving and publishing reports with selected items that might be inappropriate for certain users, particularly in environments that use row-level security (RLS)." It recommends clearing any selection that shouldn't apply to everyone before saving and distributing a report, and points out that a saved selection can stop being relevant or appropriate when the data or a user's permissions change.

A saved selection is also what readers come back to. Microsoft says readers can always return to the state the author published with the Reset to default button, so a value left selected while the author checked one region becomes every reader's starting point, and the state Reset to default restores.

How to fix it

In Power BI Desktop, clear the slicer and save the report in that state, as Microsoft recommends before publishing: select the slicer's Clear button, an eraser icon, then save. On the original slicer the Clear button sits in the Slicer header and shows when you hover over it; on the Slicer (new) visuals it sits in the Visual container header. Either way, if the header that holds it is turned off, turn that header on first, as Microsoft advises for the Slicer header, since the Clear button is not there without it. Check any bookmark that captures the slicer as well, since a bookmark saves slicer state of its own.

A custom slicer from AppSource that filters through the Visual Filters API sets and clears that filter itself, as Microsoft's guidance for building Power BI visuals describes, so the controls for clearing it are the visual's own. In Power BI Desktop, clear it on the visual the way it offers, then save the report in that state. The Chiclet Slicer, for one, is cleared with the Clear button in the visual's top right corner, by its README in Microsoft's repository for the visual. Check any bookmark that captures it as well, since Microsoft's guidance for building visuals says that when a reader switches bookmarks, Power BI hands the visual the filter the bookmark holds.

In visual.json, the selection is the filter property under objects.general[0].properties, on a custom slicer as on the slicers built into Power BI: remove it, as the example does, and leave the rest of general as it is.

When to ignore it

A default selection readers are meant to start from, which Microsoft endorses for slicers other than range slicers: "you might intentionally save a default selection so that report consumers start with a specific set of filters." Examples are a button slicer or list slicer with Force selection on, or an original slicer with Single select on, which Microsoft's visual capability data describes the same way: only one item can be chosen, and the first available is chosen when none is. Others are a slicer saved on the scenario a page opens in, such as Actual rather than Budget, and a field parameter slicer saved on the field the visuals should open with. Microsoft recommends saving range slicers cleared, and says date range slicers typically work best when they start that way, so a saved range deserves a second look. Without a policy the finding is info, a prompt to check each selection; with expect set to none, ignore it on the slicers whose default is deliberate.

To ignore this rule on one visual, add { "name": "pbiplint.ignore", "value": "SLICER_SELECTION_SAVED" } to the annotations array of its visual.json. Power BI Desktop keeps the annotation. To turn the rule off for a whole project, set "SLICER_SELECTION_SAVED": "off" under rules in pbiplint.config.json.

Quirks

A filter on the slicer in the Filters pane, which visual.json keeps in the slicer's filterConfig, is a visual-level filter, not the slicer's selection, and is not reported.
Select all saves no selection. Microsoft says it produces the same filtering result as clearing the slicer, and that Power BI does not store each item as a selection. Clearing items after Select all is a selection, though: Power BI applies an is not filter holding the cleared items, and that is reported.
In Power BI Desktop's saved files, a range or relative date slicer saves its value the same way as a list of picked items, so it is reported the same way.
Each synced copy of a slicer is reported on its own page, since Power BI Desktop's saved files write the selection into every copy.
A hidden slicer is reported like a visible one. Microsoft notes that slicers continue to filter a report page whether or not they are visible.
A selection is read by where it sits, not by the visual's type, so custom slicers from AppSource, such as the Chiclet Slicer, the Hierarchy Slicer, and the Text Filter, are reported the same way as the slicers built into Power BI. Microsoft's guidance for building Power BI visuals says a visual that filters through the Visual Filters API declares a filter in the general section of its capabilities and applies its filter there. Separately, Power BI Desktop's saved files keep these slicers' selections in that filter under objects.general, and in those files every kind of visual that carries that filter is one that filters the report.
Only the slicer as saved in visual.json is read. A bookmark that captures a different selection is not.

SLICER_SEARCH_SAVED reports a term saved in the slicer's search box, which visual.json keeps apart from the selection, so a slicer saved with both is reported by both rules.

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