Hi, I'm Tom Blessing. I'm an expert at helping small to mid-sized companies adopt Power BI. I'm also a recovering investment banker, with deep experience applying technology to otherwise manual data problems. I have dual degrees in Finance and Technology Management from Indiana University.

Resources to help build your fundamentals: Learning Power BI? Data fundamentals are critical for this process to be easier. I've assembled a few DataCamp courses to help. I earn a small commission if you click and purchase.

Introduction to Power BI course: Master Power BI basics and learn to build impactful reports.

Exploratory Data Analysis in Power BI course: Learn about Power BI's Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) and enhance your reports.

Introduction to SQL course: Learn how to create and query relational databases using SQL in just two hours.

Introduction to DAX course: Learn the fundamentals of Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) such as calculated columns, tables, and measures.

Database Design course: Learn to design databases in SQL to process, store, and organize data in a more efficient way.

One of Power BI's most useful features is bookmarks, which enable users to save the current state of a report, including slicer selections, and then switch between those states with a single click.

However, sometimes you may want to synchronize slicers across different bookmarks to maintain consistency and enhance the user experience.

In this blog post, I'll explore how to sync slicers across bookmarks in Power BI. While there isn't a single button to do this, simply creating bookmarks for each comparable state you want to retain is quite straightforward and very easy.

What are Slicers and Bookmarks in Power BI?

Before we dive into syncing slicers across bookmarks, let's briefly understand what slicers and bookmarks are:

1. Slicers: Slicers are visual filters that allow users to interactively filter data in a Power BI report. They provide a user-friendly way to control what data is displayed on visuals such as charts and tables.

2. Bookmarks: Bookmarks are a way to capture and save the current state of a report page, including the visuals, slicer selections, and other interactions. Bookmarks can be used to create custom navigation experiences and make it easy for users to switch between different views of the same report.

Why Sync Slicers Across Bookmarks?

Syncing slicers across bookmarks can be beneficial for several reasons:

1. Consistency: It ensures that slicer selections remain consistent when users switch between different bookmarks. This helps maintain a coherent user experience and prevents confusion.

2. Enhanced Interactivity: Syncing slicers allows you to create dynamic and interactive reports where changes in one bookmark affect the visuals in other bookmarks. This can be useful for comparing different data views or scenarios.

3. Simplified User Experience: Users don't have to manually adjust slicer selections when navigating through bookmarks, saving time and reducing potential errors.

How to Sync Slicers Across Bookmarks

Here are the steps to sync slicers across bookmarks in Power BI:

1. Create Slicers: Start by adding slicers to your report page if you haven't already. You can add slicers by selecting the slicer visual from the Visualizations pane and then configuring the fields you want to use as slicers. 

2. Create Bookmarks: Create the bookmarks you want to use in your report. To do this, go to the "View" tab in Power BI Desktop, and select "Bookmarks." Click on "Add" to create a new bookmark for each state you want to capture. 

3. Sync Slicers Across Bookmarks: For each bookmark you create, select the slicers, and set the slicer selections to the desired values for that bookmark. You can do this by clicking on the slicer and adjusting the selections in each bookmark. The end result will be that you have multiple bookmarks, probably on different pages, that have the same slicers set. When you want to compare tabs, you can click your bookmarks and compare slices across your dataset!

4. Test and Refine: Test your report to ensure that slicer selections are properly synced across bookmarks. Make adjustments as needed to fine-tune the user experience.

Conclusion

Syncing slicers across bookmarks in Power BI can greatly improve the user experience and make your reports more interactive and consistent.

By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can create dynamic reports that allow users to explore different views of your data seamlessly.

This feature enhances the overall usability of your Power BI reports, making them more effective tools for data analysis and decision-making.