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Just recently, I was working on the Power BI report for one of the clients, where one of the requirements was to highlight specific data points in the clustered bar chart visual, based on the slicer selection.

To illustrate the requirement, I’ll be using a Contoso sample database:

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To quickly explain: when a user selects, for example, Contoso in the slicer, the Contoso bar should be highlighted by using a different color. As much as this sounds like a very basic and common business request, there is no straightforward solution in Power BI (or, at least, I’m not aware of it:))

However, the client’s wish is (almost) always our command — so, let’s see how this feature can be implemented with a little bit of data model tweaking and leveraging some DAX code.

Setting the stage

As you may see in the following illustration, a data model is fairly simple:

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We have only two tables: DimProduct as our dimension table, and FactOnlineSales as our fact table. The first “problem” we have with a data model like this, is that when a user selects something from the slicer, the filter will be propagated and our bar chart visual will only display corresponding values:

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Therefore, the first thing we need to ensure is that when a user makes a selection, the bar chart visual is not affected. Remember, our goal is to keep all the brands displayed, while coloring…