Creating, editing, and deleting view filters in Grid/Graphs in documents

You use the View Filter dialog box to create, edit, and delete the view filters assigned to the Grids/Graphs in your document. A view filter restricts the amount of data displayed on a Grid/Graph, by allowing you to manipulate, redefine, and combine attributes and metrics to create new qualifications.

View filters can help reduce the number of datasets used to build a document that contains multiple Grids/Graphs, when all of the Grids/Graphs could share a single dataset with the use of multiple filters. For example, a document used as a dashboard contains revenue and profit information for different regions. Without view filters, you can create a report with revenue and profit metrics, then create copies of it, applying a different regional filter to each copy. If you have 10 regions, then 10 reports must be created and maintained. Each report must be added to the document as a dataset.

In contrast, view filters allow you to create one report and add it once to the document as a dataset report. Next, add multiple Grids/Graphs using the same dataset. Apply a different view filter, for each region, to the various Grids/Graphs. Now all the Grids/Graphs share a single dataset. This reduces maintenance and execution time, since only one dataset report has to be created and maintained, and only one dataset report has to be executed when the document is viewed.

View filters can filter the Grid/Graph based on metric qualifications as well as attribute qualifications. For example, you can create a view filter that contains these qualifications:

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• Revenue > $5,000,000

• Profit < $1,000,000

When the view filter is applied to a Grid/Graph containing the Region attribute and the Revenue and Profit metrics, only two regions, Central and South, met the qualifications and are displayed.

Note: View filters are local to the document. This means that a view filter does not affect the report results, only the Grid/Graph displayed on the document. A view filter created on a source report in the Report Editor is ignored in the document, so that all the data from the report is used in the document.  For more information, see Using a subset report as a dataset. For information on view filters in reports, see Filtering displayed data: View filters.

The procedures to create, edit, and delete view filters are below.

Prerequisites

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• You must own a MicroStrategy OLAP Services license to create view filters.

• The Edit View Filter option is available only when the document contains a Grid/Graph. For instructions on adding a Grid/Graph, see Adding a Grid/Graph to documents

To create a view filter in a Grid/Graph

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1. Open the document in Design or Editable Mode.

2. Right-click a Grid/Graph and select Edit View Filter. The View Filter dialog box opens.
   
   Note: If the Grid/Graph is a shortcut, you cannot create a view filter because the Grid/Graph is linked to the dataset report. A message appears, allowing you to choose whether to unlink the shortcut. If you click Convert, changes made to the dataset report are no longer passed to the Grid/Graph in the document.

3. Click Add Condition to create a new qualification to create a new view filter.

4. From the Filter On drop-down list, select the attribute or metric on which to qualify.

5. Do one of the following to select the qualifications used in the view filter: 

• To create an attribute qualification, click the Qualify option.

1. From the first drop-down list, select whether the attribute is qualified by its ID or description (DESC) column.

2. From the next drop-down list, select the appropriate operator (Greater than, Equals, Ends with, and so on).

3. Specify the value to compare the attribute to. You can either type a value in the field, or click the arrows in front of Select Attribute and select the attribute form from the drop-down list.

• To use a list of attributes, click the Select option.

1. From the first drop-down list, select In List or Not In List to determine whether the Selected list of elements are to be included or excluded from the view filter.

2. Select elements from the Available list and click the right arrow to add them to the Selected list (to select multiple elements, press CTRL and click). To return elements from the Selected list back to the Available list, select the element and click the left arrow.

• To create a metric qualification:

1. From the first drop-down list, select the operator (Greater than, Equals, and so on).

2. Specify the value to compare the metric to. You can either type a value in the field, or click the arrows in front of Select Metric and select the metric from the drop-down list.

6. Do one of the following:

• To apply the view filter to the Grid/Graph and return to the View Filter dialog box, click the Apply icon .

• To discard your current view filter conditions and return to a blank Edit View Filter dialog box, click the Cancel icon . Repeat the appropriate steps above to start a new qualification.

7. To add another qualification to the selected Grid/Graph, repeat the appropriate steps above.

8. To apply the view filter(s) to the selected Grid/Graph and close the dialog box, click OK. The newly created view filter is applied to the Grid/Graph when the document is viewed in Interactive, Editable, Flash, or Express Mode.

To edit a view filter in a Grid/Graph

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1. You can change the operator or the value that the attribute or metric is compared to, but you cannot change the attribute or metric on which to qualify. Open the document in Design or Editable Mode.

2. Right-click a Grid/Graph and select Edit View Filter. The View Filter dialog box opens with each view filter condition displayed.

3. Click the underlined text of the view filter, and make changes to the view filter conditions.

4. To apply the view filter to the Grid/Graph and return to the View Filter dialog box, click the Apply icon .

5. To apply the view filter(s) to the selected Grid/Graph and close the dialog box, click OK. The newly created view filter is applied to the Grid/Graph when you view the document in Interactive, Editable, Flash, or Express Mode.

To delete a view filter in a Grid/Graph

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1. Open the document in Design or Editable Mode.

2. Right-click a Grid/Graph and select Edit View Filter. The View Filter dialog box opens with each view filter displayed.

3. Click the next to the view filter condition to delete. To clear all view filter conditions, click Clear All. 

4. Click OK to apply the changes to the selected Grid/Graph and close the dialog box. The view filter condition is deleted from the Grid/Graph when you view the document in Interactive, Editable, Flash, or Express Mode.