In simple words they are much simpler and understandable version of Filters in Excel. The major disadvantage of the filters or even the Pivot controls was not so user-friendly interface when you go for data mining. Slicers are just opposite, they let you see what you are doing, helps you easily interact with data, filters multiple pivot tables etc.

To create a slicer you will need a Pivot Table or Pivot chart associated with a data source. Once you have configured your Pivot Table and selected which data should be displayed, you are ready to choose your slicers.

• Select the Row Labels of the Pivot tables and then click on Insert > Slicer.
• The Slicer then checks for the data source associated with the Pivot and pick the column names or labels.
• Now you can select which one you want to use and you will get one slicer for each label you select. 

What is interesting to see here is the slicers work together. For example when I select Pune, it automatically selects which roles are available in that city and data changes so in the Pivot Table. This is better than using filter where the data is hidden in the header column and since the slicers are floating it is handy when using Dashboards.

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