You can apply filters on visualizations in Power BI using the Filter pane. Filters can be applied in scopes of the report, page, or visual level. I explained that in this article. You can also customize the filter’s pane so that it hides or locks filters from the user’s view. And last but not least, you can set a custom color, font, and style for the filter’s pane. In this article and video, I’ll explain how the customization of the look and feel of the filter’s pane works.
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Filter’s pane in Power BI
The Filter’s pane in Power BI is where you apply filters on visualizations. Filters can be applied simply and customized to be on different scopes. You can also hide or lock the filters if you want. I strongly recommend you to read the two below articles and videos to learn more about them;
Where to customize the Filters Pane?
Filters pane is a page property, and to customize it, you have to click somewhere blank on the page where there is no visual, then click on the format;
Page format is a place that you can apply formatting on the page elements, such as page background, wallpaper, size of the page, as well as the Filter pane;
Let’s talk about how the Filters formatting work.
Filter Pane Formatting
The Filter pane’s background color, fonts, and icons, border configurations of that, all can be configured under this section.
Everything you apply here, would impact the filter pane on that page, but not the filter cards.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the filter pane’s formatting will change everything except for the areas in the filter pane that something is filtered. those areas are called filter cards.
Filter Card Formatting
To format the cards inside a filter, you can use the Filter card setting. Before you start the formatting here, you have to know there are two types of cards for formatting; Applied and Available.
Available
Available means a filter card that no filter has been set on it. In other words, it is available for filtering. any configurations you apply here will only impact a card if there is no filter set on it.
Applied
Applied in a filter card with some filter set in it already. For example, the filter for the IMDb rating below is set to something (is not blank), while the filter on Worldwide Lifetime is not (showing all). That will make the IMDb rating filter card, an applied card.
The distinction of applied and available cards is there to help the user to identify which filters have set and which are not.
Filter’s format in ALL Pages
One of the problems of setting the format of the filter pane and filter card in the page formatting is that it only applies to the current page, not other pages.
If you want to apply formatting on the filter pane, or filter card that applies on all filters, then you have to do it using a Theme. I have explained about Power BI Theme in this article. Accessing the theme can be through the View tab in Power BI, then Themes, and you can customize the current theme from there.
In the customize theme, there is a tab for the Filter pane, and sub-tabs for available and applied filter cards;
Any settings applied here will be applied on all the pages of the Power BI report. If you want this to be also applied on other PBIX files you create, then you have to save the theme, and re-use it in other files, learn more about the Power BI Themes here.
Summary
In Summary, The filter’s formatting is possible via page format settings. There is formatting for the whole filter pane, then for available or applied filter cards. If you want the formatting to be applied for the filter pane on all pages, then you can do it via Themes. I hope this article helps you in your journey towards better reporting with Power BI.
Reza is author of more than 14 books on Microsoft Business Intelligence, most of these books are published under Power BI category. Among these are books such as Power BI DAX Simplified, Pro Power BI Architecture, Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star, Power Query books series, Row-Level Security in Power BI and etc.
He is an International Speaker in Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Business Applications Summit, Data Insight Summit, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday and SQL user groups. And He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Reza’s passion is to help you find the best data solution, he is Data enthusiast.
His articles on different aspects of technologies, especially on MS BI, can be found on his blog: https://radacad.com/blog.