How Icon Map Slicer filters
Icon Map Slicer is a slicer you draw on. Select items on the map, and every other visual on the report page is filtered to the rows you picked. The map itself keeps every item: the ones you selected stay solid and the rest fade.
What happens when you select
- You select one or more items on the map: by clicking, with the lasso, with a circle, by travel time or with a shape.
- Icon Map Slicer collects the ID values of the rows behind those items.
- It applies them to the report page as a filter, the same way a slicer does.
- Every other visual on the page shows only the rows that relate to those IDs.
The filter works through your data model, so the other visuals must use a table that is related to the table of the ID field. A visual with no relationship to that table is not filtered.
It filters, it does not highlight
Some Power BI visuals cross-highlight: the other visuals keep all their data and stress the selected part. Icon Map Slicer always filters. To stop it filtering one visual, select the map, choose Format > Edit interactions, and pick None on that visual. Filter is the other choice.
The map is not filtered by its own selection
Icon Map Slicer keeps drawing every item, so you can change your selection. It is filtered by other slicers, filters and visuals on the page in the usual way, and then draws only the rows that remain.
Ways to select
| Tool | How | Set up in | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Click | Click an item. Hold Ctrl or Shift to add more. | Always on | Click, lasso and circle select |
| Lasso | Draw a freehand shape around items. | Selection > User Selection > Lasso | Click, lasso and circle select |
| Circle select | Drag a circle out from a point. | Selection > User Selection > Circle Select | Click, lasso and circle select |
| Everything inside a shape | Click a shape, or a polygon of a reference layer, to select what lies inside it. | Select Intersecting Items, Use Polygons for Selection | Select everything inside a shape |
| Travel time | Click a place to select what can be reached in a set time or distance. | Selection > User Selection > Isochrone Select | Select by travel time |
| Map view | Pan and zoom: the other visuals show only what is inside the map view. | Selection > Map Location | Filter by the map view |
All the selection tools send the same kind of filter, so the settings on this page apply to each of them. Filtering by the map view is a second filter that works alongside the others.
How selected items look
While a selection is active, the map changes the transparency of its data items. The settings are in Format pane > Selection > Formatting.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Selected Items Transparency | Transparency of the items you selected. 0 is solid, 100 is invisible. | 20 |
| Unselected Items Transparency | Transparency of every other data item while a selection is active. | 80 |
With nothing selected, each layer uses its own transparency.
Things to know:
- The settings apply to circles, images, lines, shapes, cells and catalog features joined to a row.
- Data labels fade with their items. There is no setting to keep labels at full strength.
- 3D items (3D columns and extruded cells and shapes) cannot fade one by one. Unselected 3D items turn gray instead, and the transparency settings do not apply to them.
- Heatmaps do not change.
- With Label Visibility set to When selected, only the selected items show their labels. See Data labels.
Limit how many items can be selected
Format pane > Selection > User Selection > Max Selections sets the most items one selection can hold, from 1 to 100,000. The default is 5,000.
A large filter can make Power BI pause while it filters the other visuals. If a selection holds more items than Max Selections, Icon Map Slicer keeps the first ones up to the limit and drops the rest without a message. Raise the limit if you need larger selections and can accept the wait.
Clear the selection
| Way | How | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| Click the background | Click an empty part of the map. | Background Click Clears Selection, on by default. Switch it off to keep the selection when a reader clicks the background. |
| The clear button | Select the Clear All Selections button on the map. | Clear Selections Button, off by default. It is on the Selection card and on the User Interface card: the two switches are the same setting. |
| Click the same item again | When the selection is one item, or the rows of one cell or shape, click it again. | Always on |
Clearing removes the filter, so the other visuals show all their rows again. It also removes a travel time area from the map.
Ctrl+click or Shift+click on a selected item takes it out of the selection. Taking out the last one clears the filter. Drawing a lasso, a circle or a travel time area never clears the selection, even when it holds exactly the items already selected: only a click toggles items off.
Saved selections and bookmarks
The filter is stored with the report, like a slicer's selection. When you save the report, or capture a bookmark, with items selected, the other visuals open filtered and the map shows those items selected. To start again, clear the selection.
Icon Map Slicer declares that it can keep its filter in step with other copies of itself, which Power BI uses for its Sync slicers pane.
Filter by the map view at the same time
When Map Location is set up, moving the map filters the other visuals to the area in view, and that filter is combined with the items you select. See Filter by the map view for how the two work together.
What can be selected
An item can be selected when it comes from a row of your data and its layer allows selection.
| Layer | Setting |
|---|---|
| Circles, Images and icons, Lines, Shapes (from data), Shapes (from files), Vector tiles, Cells | Selectable: Yes or No. Takes conditional formatting (fx), so some rows can be made unselectable. |
| 3D columns | Allow Selection: Yes or No. Takes fx. |
| Icon Map Catalog layers joined to your data | Set in the catalog window. |
| Heatmap | Cannot be selected. |
| Shapes in a file that match no row | Cannot be selected. |
| Reference layers | Not joined to your data, so they cannot be selected. A GeoJSON / Shape / KML reference layer can be used to select the items inside its polygons: see Select everything inside a shape. |
An ArcGIS layer bound to your data has Selectable too.
An item that stands for several rows selects all of them. Clicking a cell that aggregates 40 points selects those 40 rows.
Selectable set to No keeps the layer's items out of every selection: clicks, the lasso, circle select and travel time.
Drill-down
The ID field well accepts a hierarchy, for example Country, Region, District. Power BI then shows its drill buttons on the visual header. With drill mode on, clicking an item on the map drills into it. A click on 20 items or fewer drills; the selection still filters the page.
Layers that join your data to shapes can show a different set of shapes at each level, with the setting Display multiple layers as. See Shapes from files and Vector tiles.
Right-click menu
Right-click a data item to open Power BI's context menu for that row, with commands such as Include, Exclude and Drill through. Right-click an empty part of the map to open the visual's general menu.
The map does not move to a selection
By default the view stays where it is when you select items.
On a map added in 1.1.0.11 or later, you can make the map zoom to the selection with Zoom to selected items in the Basemaps dialog, on the View and zoom tab under Selections and highlights, and zoom back out when the selection is cleared with Zoom back out afterwards. See View, zoom and projection.
Tips and limits
- The ID field decides what is filtered. Use the column that identifies a row in the table your other visuals relate to, for example a store code.
- Items beyond Max Selections are dropped without a message.
- Items on the map cannot be selected with the keyboard.
- To stop a layer taking part in selection, set its Selectable setting to No. The pointer no longer changes to a hand over its items.