The Pre-Filters Page

You can pre-filter data in the Data Chooser before clicking the OK button to launch the Ad Hoc Editor or before clicking Save as Topic to create a Domain Topic. Pre-filtering data limits the data choices available in a Domain Topic or the fields that ultimately appear in the Ad Hoc view. You also can define a filter on a field that does not appear in the final report. The filter is still applied and only data that satisfies all defined filters appear in the final report. For example, you can filter data to select a single country, in which case it doesn't make sense for the Country field to appear as a row, column, or group. You also can design reports that prompt users to input data to use as a filter.

The Pre-filters page provides powerful functionality for designing views within the server.

To define a filter, complete the following steps:
 

1. In the Data Chooser, click Pre-filters.
   
   

2. Expand the options in the Fields panel.
   
   

3. Double-click to select a field in the Fields panel. A corresponding box appears in the Filters panel. Use the options in this box to establish the filtering parameters for the selected field.
   
   

4. Click each value for comparison in Available Values to move it to Selected Values. The account names appear in Selected Values.
   
   

   Text fields have both substring comparison operators such as "starts with" or "contains" and whole string matching such as "equals" or "is one of." When you select a whole string matching operator, a list appears showing all existing values for the chosen field retrieved in real-time from the database.

    

    

5. In the Filters panel, a drop-down containing the account names appears from which you can select multiple values.

    

    

    If there are more than 50 values to display in Available Values, click the Search button to search for the value. The maximum number of items that can be displayed in Available Values is configurable.

    

    

6. To limit the view design to the four account names in Selected Values, check the Locked check box:  

   • By default, the Locked check box is not selected, making the filter available to end-users when they run the report.
     
     

   • In the Report Viewer, users can click the Options button to enter a comparison value for this condition; when the user clicks the Apply or OK buttons, the report preview refreshes with data that match the condition. The condition is available as a prompt even if the filtered field does not appear in the report. For example, the final report might present data for a single country, but the country is chosen by the user. Once defined, filter prompts can be modified in the Ad Hoc Editor.
     
     

   • Note that when the Locked check box is checked, the filter is not available to end-users when they run the report. The condition can only be removed from the view, if needed, but not edited.
     
     

7. Click the OK button to define the filter. The Filters panel shows the filters you have defined.
   
   

8. In the Filters panel, click Change to modify the condition. Click the OK button to save the changes. After selecting a row, you can also click Remove to delete it from the list.