MicroStrategy ONE

Shortcut-to-a-Filter Qualification

A shortcut-to-a-filter qualification allows you to move an existing filter into a new filter, and apply the new filter to a report. You can also add additional conditions to the new filter and then apply the new filter to the report. For example, Filter 1 contains two conditions, A and B. You can use Filter 1 as the basis of a new filter, and then add another condition C to the new filter. The data that is filtered for must then satisfy all three conditions A, B, and C to be included in any report which uses the new filter. Note that Filter 1 remains unchanged throughout this process.

For example, you are a manager in New England, responsible for stores in Boston, Providence, and Greenwich. Your project contains a filter called Stores In My Region, which is defined as the Boston, Providence, and Greenwich stores. A second filter, called Women's Clothing filter, includes the categories Blouses and Dresses. A third filter, All Days in December 2023, is a date range that includes all the days in the month of December 2023. To study December sales in your stores for women's clothing, you create a new filter. The new filter includes a shortcut to each of the three filters. Use this new filter in your report. The original three filters are unchanged, which is useful for other reports that use one or more of those filters.

You can also use an existing filter as a base for a new filter and then add additional qualifications to expand the overall filter definition. For example, you can take a filter that screens data for all customers in the Southwest region, place that filter into a new filter, and add a new filter qualification for active customers in the current year. The new filter screens data for all currently active customers in the Southwest region.

This approach shows you the value of creating some basic, relatively simple filters in your project, such as a filter for customers in a specific region. Then you can make use of these basic filters within shortcut-to-a-filter filters to make the filter creation process quicker.

For steps to create a stand-alone filter, see To create a filter based on another filter.

Allowing user input into the filter: Prompted shortcut-to-a-filter qualification

You can allow a user to modify a filter, by including a prompt in the filter definition. You can use an existing prompt or create an prompt embedded in the filter. A prompt in a shortcut-to-a-filter qualification allows a user to select from a list of filters.

Steps to use an existing prompt or create an embedded prompt are included in To create a filter based on another filter below.

To create a filter based on another filter

  1. Click Create on any page, and select New Filter.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • To select a filter, in the pane on the left, navigate to the filter to use in the new filter. Right-click the filter and select Add to Filter.

      If DHTML is disabled, select the filter and click Add > to add the filter to the Filter panel.

    • To use an existing Object prompt of filters, in the pane on the left, navigate to the prompt to use as a filter. Right-click the prompt and select Add to Filter.

      If DHTML is disabled, select the prompt and click Add > to add the prompt to the Filter panel.

    • To create a prompt that allows the user to select the filter, in the pane on the left, perform the following steps:

      1. Navigate to the filter to use as the default prompt answer.
      2. Right-click the filter and select Add Prompt to Filter. A prompt is created that lists all the project's filters when the report is run, with the selected filter as the default answer.
      3. To modify the prompt, click List of Filters. The Prompt page opens. You can add filters; change the prompt's title, description, and display style; restrict the number of prompt answers; and determine whether prompt answers can be saved and reused. For steps, see How to Create an Object Prompt.
  3. From the File menu, select Save.
  4. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the filter. Type a Name and Description for the filter, and click OK.

The filter that you created can now be added to a report. For steps, see Adding a stand-alone filter to a report.

Joining filter qualifications with operators

When a filter has multiple qualifications, they are always joined by operators. When qualifications are joined, operators govern the interaction between different filtering conditions. Whenever you have more than one qualification in a report filter, you can define the operator as any of the following:

  • AND
  • OR
  • OR NOT
  • AND NOT

The AND operator is the operator assigned by default when more than one qualification is added to a filter. You can change the default AND operator by right-clicking on the word AND in the filter's definition pane, pointing to Toggle Operator, and selecting a different operator.

For more information on advanced operators to apply to a report limit, see the Logical and Mathematical Operators for Filtering appendix in the Advanced Reporting Help.