Filtering a Visualization From the Filter Toolbar

Filters in WebFOCUS Designer can utilize one of two behaviors. These are static filters and prompted filters. Static filters are always applied to your content whenever it is run, and allow you to apply consistent filter values without prompting the user to make filter selections. They are applied to a single content item at a time, and can only be added to new content. Prompted filters, on the other hand, allow users to select the filter values to use in your visualization at run time. When you create a prompted filter, a control appears on the Filter toolbar, allowing you to make filter selections. The user can see these controls and make selections from them at run time. Run-time controls are not displayed for static filters. Prompted filters can be created for new content, or added to a visualization from referenced content.

Prompted filters are created, accessed, and modified from the Filter toolbar. You can create a prompted filter in one of the following ways:

• Drag a field from the Resource panel to the Filter toolbar.
• Right-click a field from the Resources panel or a bucket in the Properties panel and click Add to filter toolbar.
• Use on-chart filtering to select areas of a chart on the canvas.
• Add external content that includes dynamic parameter filters to a page assembled from external content.

The Filter toolbar is displayed below the page heading in the following image.

When creating a prompted filter in a new chart or report, you can click a control on the Filter toolbar to change the filter selection, or right-click the it to access additional filtering options, such as making the filter required, changing the aggregation, changing the number of values that can be selected, or changing the filter operation from value selection to exclusion.

Right-click a prompted filter generated for external content to change the control type or merge controls for the same field. You can also use the options on the Settings and Format tabs to set default values for the filter, specify how the filter interacts with items in a page or portal, and style the filter.

Different types of filters provide different controls on the Filter toolbar. Filters on alphanumeric fields provide a list from which you can select values, measure fields provide a slider on which you can provide maximum and minimum values, and date fields provide a calendar from which you can select a range of dates or use a default range option.