Dashboard master filters

Hi,

Sorry if posted before, couldn’t see a topic. A suggestion I would like to put forward is to allow the dashboard designer to place an overriding filter for a dashboard which is using the common dimensions.

Note this is not security, rather we want to reduce the dashboard down to a specific area of the dashboard and all widgets want to be pre-filtered with this criteria.

Although currently we could either add these as criteria at the top of the dashboard, it is a manual process for the user to do. Alternatively we have to place the filter on each widget. It would be beneficial if we could have a place on the dashboard design override all the widgets from one location to apply the filters you need.

Real life example.

In financial statements from time to time we get instruction from finance to adjust the criteria of a specific hierarchy to include/exclude certain Financial departments. This means we have to update numerous dashboards and there associated widgets. By having a master criteria on the dashboard we could get it to be already pre-filtered without the several widget adjustments.

The functionality already exists in Phocas when you create a shortcut link to another dashboard in the designer (placing a Parameter on the URL), it would be great if we had this option on the dashboard design as well, would save a lot of dev time.

How it could work
Perhaps an options button available to the dashboard owner/administrator.

image
Clicking on the gear cog would then show this dialog:
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Since the dashboard will know the databases being displayed, the drop down would show the dimensions/measures associated.

If the user wants to remove the filter, they can do so by clicking on the “X” as normal, but the dashboard would be by default in the critiera we want to display.

Please let me know what you think.

Kind Regards,

Jon

4 Likes

Hi @JonKemp
A great idea indeed!

I have often wondered if we can manipulate the URL to a favourite / dashboard / database more than we can already.
What I have found is we Can give the Url simple searches like this example:

And we can even implement multiple searches at the same time by adding more parameters like this:

On a Dashboard or Favourite or Database, the above works well. Just like the Link Through to another dashboard, yet I feel the URL way is more flexible with its’ multiple parameter possibilities.

Sadly, so far I haven’t found a way of using this method selecting multiple items for one Entity.
I was hoping for something for something like this:
/Query/Databases/24?ProductClass=1001,1002,1003,1006,1009&Customer=0000660,0000666
But, although it shows it might work, it doesn’t seem to work properly.
Maybe the syntax is just elusive, and someone else knows how to select multiple?
Answers on a postcard to Saturday Morning Multi-coloured-Swap-Shop!
(Oh My Gosh I am showing my age lol)

One caviat seems to be the Dimention has to be one-word - without spaces in it.
So Product Class wouldn’t work, but ProductClass would work.

A Master Criteria or Advanced search based upon multiple databases on a Dashboard would be very cool though, even if it had to be on a One-Cog-per-Widget basis. It could be very useful yes indeed.

Warm regards,

Richard

Hi @richj,

Actually you can put dimension values in with spaced words. This uses standard HTML language replace the spaces with “%20” :wink:

Here is an example:

Regards,

Jon

2 Likes

Brill, thanks @JonKemp :smile:

Richard

Hi,

You can specify multiple key values using the pipe separator;

image

If the target dimension has a space in the name, like ‘Product Group’, you have to web-encode the space (%20);

image

3 Likes

Ah haaaa! the pipe symbol!! Thank you @jason.law! I am very grateful.

Warm regards,

Richard

This is a useful conversation. Is there a help article outlining the URL syntax and how to use it?

2 Likes

I would also find a help article on the url’s very useful! I never thought to manipulate it like that.

1 Like

Hi Community, I have been using URL manipulation for a considerable amount of my reporting. There are a couple of grey areas for me still though and I was wondering if anyone might have some solutions for me?

  1. Are there limits to how many filters you can set by way of URL manipulation?

  2. Are there exceptions to what you can filter by way of URL manipulation? I seem to be able to add filtering for simple “equals” (=) requests, and I can add multiples via pipes (Value1|Value2|Value3 as discussed earlier - however I cannot seem to get other options to work such as “not equal” (!=), or “like” and “not like”. Has anyone found some hidden syntax rules for these or do they just not work?

  3. Lastly, are there limitations to what you can filter on this way? In my Product Dimension, I have several Properties that look to be setup as sub properties if that makes any sense. From what I can guess, I cannot access these properties to use in URL manipulation.

Example: In the Advanced Search window, I select Dimension National Product from the drop down list. I select the + button to add a new Property. there are some properties that sit directly under National Product, ie: Code, Product Name, Product Group, etc…but then there are several that sit under what looks to be a second level hierarchy. The property I want is found with 14 other properties under a heading like Product Info. It looks a little like this if you structure it: National Product / Product Info --> “My Property”

I hope someone understood what I was trying to say.

I have redirected the request for help article/knowledge base to our documentation manager.

1 Like

Thanking You :slight_smile:

I’ve built a nice new dashboard with 16 KPIs and 12 other chart widgets, go to show bossman, “We need to filter out inter-company sales”… :neutral_face:
14 clicks to apply that filter to each widget… almost 400 clicks to go and update this dashboard now.
In Power BI or Google Looker Studio, you can very easily apply a page wide filter just once to apply to all widgets.
There’s gotta be a better way. Even if it’s as simple as having the Grid view’s Advanced Search button on the top of the dashboard and being able to save the search criteria applied as default.

Edited to add: There’s also no way of knowing if I’ve missed a widget or if any widgets have inconsistent filters :melting_face:

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Thanks for adding your thoughts on this long overdue request I raised 5 years ago :frowning:

As it hasnt materialised yet, my only suggestion is to create some widgets at the top of your dashboard which allows the user to focus on them. On all my dashboards, the first line of the dashboard is “criteria”, this houses multiple widgets on the key aspects the end user want to filter on. This is the only means of creating it. If your requirement is to limit the dashboard specifically to a set query then you are stuck in creating a per widget approach as you outlined.

The other option is (more severe but could work for you), is default restrictions, you can allocate a user restriction on the database level, so if the users only ever look at one area, you could restrict thier access, this will mean ALL dashboards on that DB will have the same restriction so its an “all or nothing” setup, not ideal but will get you the same result by limiting the end users data. I am not a big fan of this as it comes with other pitfalls, but mentioning it as it may help you.

This is a long overdue feature, it is a massive quality of life improvement for us admins but not deemed a high priority for Phocas at present. Hopefully more people will comment on this post to gain more traction.

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