How to Filter Charts Using the Google Sheets Slicer

Google Sheet users can now do more with the new Slicer feature on the platform. In one of our previous tutorials, we used checkboxes to control what data is displayed in our charts. In this tutorial, we will do the same thing but using the Slicer.

Here are the steps:

‍Step 1: Create a sheet containing the data to be displayed in the chart. Make sure that each column will contain a data point. Google Sheets will process it as an entry on the x-axis. Also, make sure that the column containing the row headings for specific data has its own header. For our example, I added a “Metrics” header to the column containing the row headers. This will be important later on.

Image: original data that will be visualized using a bar chart. Rows: total number of orders, total number of items, total sales, total cost, total profit, and average profit per order. Columns: Metrics, week 27, week 28, week 29, week 30, and week 31.

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Step 2: Insert a chart that will use the data from the sheet. You can check our tutorial on creating charts here if you need a refresher.

Image: The original chart. Each row header contains individual bars for each week.

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Step 3: Click on any cell inside the table, and then insert a slicer by clicking Data and then Slicer.

Image: How to add the Slider widget. Click Data on the main menu and then click on the Slicer in the appearing drop-down menu.

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Step 4: A sidebar will be loaded on the right side, prompting you to select a column. Select the column containing the row headers. For this example, I will select Metrics.

Image: Slicer sidebar. Contains Data and Customize tabs. The columns that can be selected are listed.

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Step 5: After selecting the column, click on the inverted triangle in the Slicer widget. By default, the Filter by values is selected, with a list of row headers, all checked.

Image: the Slicer widget displaying the filter options. Filter by value selected. The row headers listed down, all checked. Clicking on each listed item will uncheck them.

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To select which ones to hide, uncheck the row headers you don’t want to be included, then click Ok. For example, if I only want the Total profit displayed, then I will uncheck all the other entries and then click Ok. If you want to include the unchecked item, just click the entry and it will be checked again. Here’s the result:

Image: The chart with total profit displayed.

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Another Way to Visualize Data...

You can do much more with the Slicer + Charts to create more flexible and interactive workbooks in Google Sheets!

However, if you're having a hard time pulling all your data for the month and importing it onto Google Sheets, consider trying Lido. Not only do we automatically load your selected data from various platforms, but we also have a robust report creator that includes similar functions to the Google Sheets' Slicer.

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