Bookmarks are a useful tool for saving space on a Power BI report, navigating through report pages, and highlighting key information for report users. In this class, we’ll look at several ways to use bookmarks, including hiding and showing slicers, saving filter selections, connecting bookmarks to buttons, and creating personal bookmarks.

Using bookmarks to show and hide slicers

If your report contains a lot of visuals, you might not have enough room to keep slicers displayed all the time. Bookmarks provide a way to create a slicer panel that users can show or hide when needed.

Start by adding a shape to serve as the background of your slicer area. Go to Insert, select Shapes, and add a rectangle. The rectangle can be formatted however you like because its formatting doesn't affect the bookmarks. Next, add the slicers you want users to work with, such as a slicer for data type and another for date. From the View tab, open the Bookmarks and Selection panes. These panes allow you to control which visuals are visible and save those states as bookmarks. Create a new bookmark and name it "Show Slicers." When you right-click a bookmark, you can control what information it records:

• Data: Saves slicer data.
• Display: Saves visual selection information.
• Current page: Returns the user to the page that was selected when the bookmark was created.

For the Show Slicers bookmark, the goal is to control which visuals are displayed, so leave Display selected and turn off the other options. Next, hide the slicers and their background shape using the Selection pane. Create another bookmark and name it "Hide Slicers," using the same Display setting. You can now toggle between the two bookmarks to show or hide the slicer panel.

Connecting bookmarks to buttons

Bookmarks can be mapped to buttons to make them easier for report users to access. Go to the Insert tab and add a button. Give it an appropriate title, such as "Show Slicers." Select the button and open its Action settings. Enable an action and select the Show Slicers bookmark. Create another button for Hide Slicers and assign the Hide Slicers bookmark to it. You can also use the Selection pane to control which button appears in each bookmark state. After adjusting the visibility of the buttons, update the appropriate bookmark to save the new selection. This allows users to toggle the slicer panel with buttons rather than interacting directly with the Bookmarks pane.

Saving slicer selections with bookmarks

Bookmarks can do more than control the visibility of visuals. They can also save slicer selections. For example, suppose someone at your company only needs to see your most important data. Open the slicers and select only the appropriate data. Then create a new bookmark, give it a descriptive name such as "Most Important," and configure it to bookmark the data. After changing or clearing the slicer selections, selecting the bookmark returns the report to the saved data selection. This bookmark can also be mapped to a button, giving users a quick way to jump directly to that view.

Clearing all slicers

Power BI also includes a built-in button for clearing slicers. Go to Buttons and select Clear all Slicers. Power BI creates a button that users can select to clear their slicer selections and return them to a blank state. This can provide a convenient reset option when a report contains multiple slicers.

Creating personal bookmarks

Once your report bookmarks are working as expected, you can publish the report to the Power BI service and use personal bookmarks to save individual report views. For example, suppose you want to monitor your most important data for a particular location. Apply the appropriate slicer selections and filters, then open the bookmark options and create a personal bookmark. After clearing or changing the report filters, you can return to that personal bookmark to restore the saved view. Personal bookmarks provide a way for users to save their own preferred views and settings within an online Power BI report.

Key takeaways

Bookmarks in Power BI can save the visibility of report visuals as well as data settings. They can be paired with buttons to create a more interactive reporting experience, including controls for showing and hiding slicers or quickly navigating to important data. After a report is published, personal bookmarks also allow individual users to save the report views and settings that are most useful to them.