PhixFlow Help

Using Filters

Overview

Use filters to display a sub-set of data in a chart. When you create or edit a filter, PhixFlow displays a window where you can specify a set of clauses. Each clause contains a number of conditions.

You can name and save filters for future use, or use them temporarily. 

For information about other settings, see Form Descriptions.

Filter Window

Toolbar

  •  Apply Filter Apply the filter without saving it.
  •  Save Save without closing.
  •  OK Save and close.

To save a filter for future use, after entering the details remember to save the filter.

Filter Tab

FieldDescription
NameThe name of the filter.
Stream NameThe name of the stream to which the filter applies.
Private

Available to users with the Create Public Filters privilege.

 Tick to make the filter available only to the user who created it. If this field is not visible to you, the filter is automatically private.

 Untick to make the filter available to other PhixFlow users.

Protect during import

 Tick to prevent the filter being updated or deleted during import.

 Untick to allow the filter to be updated or deleted during import.

Access Permissions
Available to users with the Create Public Filters privilege, when the Private check box is not ticked.
All Users Can View Filter

 Tick to make the filter visible to all users with permission to view filters.

 Untick to specify User Groups that can use this filter.

User Groups

Available when  All Users Can View Filter is not ticked.

Select the user groups who will be able to view this filter.


Build a filter by adding conditions and clauses.

FieldDescription

 Add

Add a clause to the filter. Hover over the editor to the right of a condition to see this button.

 Delete

Delete the selected clause or condition from the filter. Hover over the editor to the right of a condition or clause to see this button.

Indicates the value entered is a literal value. Click this icon to switch the value as an expression.

Indicates the value entered is an expression. Click this icon to switch the value to a literal value.

Ignore Case

 Untick so that, for PhixFlow instances running on Oracle or MariaDB (MySQL), the condition only matches strings that have the same capitalisation (case-sensitive).

 Tick  so that the condition matches strings that have any capitalisation (case-insensitive). For example "abc" matches "abc", "Abc", "ABC", etc. For case-insensitive filters, there is no difference if the attribute is also indexed. 

Whether or not the check box is ticked by default depends on the underlying stream attribute property tab → Advanced section → Filter conditions are case-independent by default.

This option affects the behaviour of filters for PhixFlow instances running on Oracle or MariaDB (MySQL) databases.
For PhixFlow instances running on a SQLServer database, filters are always case-independent.

 Filter Picker

Display the filter picker. Click this icon to display a list of possible values to filter by. See Using Filters#Using Filter Pickers, below.

Description Tab

Optionally, enter a description to explain the purpose of this filter.

Some Filter Examples

Create prompt filter

You can create a filter that will prompt users to enter a value, and filter based on that. For example, if you have data which contains people's names, you could create a filter like:

Name contains _prompt.EnterName fx

Filter on Current User

If your data contains details of the user, you may be able to filter based on the currently logged in user. For example, to set a filter where the owner equals the current logged in user, add a condition to the filter:

Owner equals _user.name fx

Enter a list of values for an "Is In" or "Is Not In" filter

If you want to select a set of records which have a field set to one of a range of possible values you can do this by selecting the "Is in" or "Is not in" comparator from the drop down list and then simply typing the list of values into the edit box to the right of the comparator as a comma separated list like this:

Country Is in England, France, Germany ABC

Alternatively, you can enter the comparison value as expression:

Country Is in ["England","France","Germany"] fx

Using Filter Pickers

If the stream view that you are filtering on has Allow Filter Picker selected, then PhixFlow displays the  icon after the value field. To use a filter picker:

  1. Click on the filter picker icon  to display a list of the possible values to filter on for that field.
  2. Click to select one value, or Shift+click or Ctrl+click to select multiple values to use in the filter
  3. Click on the tick in the bottom right to finish.
    Alternatively double-click on a row to add that row to your selection and close.

To clear the currently selected values, click on the cross in the bottom left.

When you are constructing a quick filter, the values displayed in the filter picker list have already been filtered by any stream view:

  • background filters
  • stream view filters
  • any other filter conditions.

When you select:

  • one value from the list, the filter condition changes to:
    • either Equals
    • or not Equals, when the selected condition is not Equals
  • multiple values from the list, the value field is automatically changed to an expression, and the filter condition changes to:
    • either Is in
    • or Is not inwhen the selected condition iis set to Is not in.

There are some scenarios where  PhixFlow cannot generate the list of values for a filter picker list.

  • pivot views
  • where the underlying stream data is aggregated.

In these cases, PhixFlow automatically hides the icon  Filter Picker.






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