Filtering

Filters are used to show results for a sub-group of interest. This article explains filtering, how to create, apply, and modify filters, how to quickly create lots of filters, and how to put filter controls onto pages.

What is filtering?

The table on the left shows the percentage of people in a sample of 895 who selected each of the companies as their main phone company. The table on the right has only been computed for the 435 males in the sample; such a table is known as a filtered table. 

There are many ways to customize the filtering for your dashboard, see How to Setup Filtering in a Dashboard. This article walks through how to do this the easiest way with a basic filter variable. It includes:

• Creating filters
• Modifying filters
• Apply a Filter
• Quickly creating lots of filters
• Creating filter controls on pages
• Watch a filtering walk-through

Creating filters

You can also create a filter variable directly in your data set in the Data Sources tree. Select any variable and click + > Filter > New.

Modifying filters

When you create a filter, it appears in the data set as an additional variable. Notice that a new Gender is Male filter variable has been created under Data Sources.

If you wish to modify the filter, you select the filter variable in the Data Sources tree and press the Edit filter button in the object inspector.

Apply a Filter

Once you have created a filter, you can reapply it by clicking the Filter(s) dropdown and selecting it. The box will go green, as shown below.

Note that you cannot necessarily filter everything. For example, if a visualization is hooked up to a table, you need to filter the table, not the visualization, in order to see a filtered visualization.

Quickly creating lots of filters

1. Selecting the variable set in the Data Sources tree.
2. Click + > Filter > Filters from Selected Data.

The filters will appear as Binary - Multi variable sets:

Creating filter controls on pages

If creating an online report/dashboard, or performing report automation, it can be useful to have controls on pages that allow people in view mode to set and change filters. For example, the page below allows users to filter by sex.

Controls that filter data are placed on a page by:

1. Clicking on whatever needs to be filtered (e.g., a table, the entire page).
2. Clicking either Combo Box Filters, List Box Filters, or Text Box Filters from the object inspector.

Watch a filtering walk-through

For a more in depth discussion on types of filtering you can implement in a document and steps, see How to Setup Filtering in a Dashboard.

Next

Customizing Online Reports/Dashboards