Slicers in Action

We’ve already seen how pivot tables can turn rows and rows of raw data into meaningful summaries, like total revenue by product or average sales per region. It’s a powerful way to simplify and analyze information. But what if we’re building a report for someone else? What if a teammate or stakeholder wants to explore the data from different angles, without editing the pivot table or touching formulas?

This is where slicers come in.

Slicers act like interactive filters that sit right on top of our report. With just a few clicks, anyone can adjust the view, filtering by product, date, region, or any other category, without altering the actual pivot table settings. It’s like giving viewers their own remote control to explore the data how they want to.

Inserting a slicer

To create a slicer, we’ll start with a sample sales dataset that includes columns for Date, Product, Region, and Revenue. Our goal is to build a slicer that allows us to filter the data by Region.

1. Click on any single cell inside the dataset. Google Sheets will automatically detect the full data range.

2. Go to the top menu and select “Data” → “Add a slicer.” This opens the slicer sidebar on the right side of the screen, and a slicer widget will appear instantly on the sheet.

3. In the slicer sidebar, use the “Column” dropdown ...