Instead of displaying all the data in a Request, you will often want to search for rows (records) in the database that meet certain criteria. For example, you have a report that shows the various makes and models of cars at dealerships throughout the North West. You want to see which dealerships have a specific make of car (Honda). To search for all Hondas, you would create a filter.
If you wanted to, you could narrow your search further and search for all red Hondas sold to a specific dealer. To do this you would create another filter to search for red Hondas and another one to identify the dealer’s name. To find out more about how to do this, see Creating Multiple Filter Conditions.
What is a Filter Condition?
For each filter, you must define a condition that must be met to produce the results you want. This is what’s known as a filter condition. Depending on your needs, you can have one or more filter conditions. For example, if you want to search for all red cars, you would need one filter condition. If you wanted to search for all red Honda cars sold by a specific salesmen, you would need to include three filter conditions: one for color, one for make, and one for salesman.
The filter condition consists of the following parts:
- Data Item This is the fundamental part of the filter condition, the subject of the filter comparison. The data item you choose will affect the other parts of the filter condition. Some examples are Car Make, Car Model, Car Color, etc.
- Is (Not) This is an operator (either Is or Is Not) which determines whether the filter condition is true or not
- Relationship This describes how a data item compares to the value you specify in this filter condition by using comparison operators, such as Like, Equal To, or In the List.
- Value The value is what the data item will be compared against. For example, the data item Car Make could be compared against the value Honda.
- At Runtime (Optional) Determines whether a user supplies filter condition values when the Request is run. For example, you may want to give the user the flexibility of entering a specific value such as red or blue instead of limiting the filter condition to one particular color.
Note: You can set it up so that the user will be asked to complete certain filter conditions at runtime. For more information on this option, see Supplying Filter Condition Values at Runtime.