Forum Discussion

AlexGale's avatar
AlexGale
Qrew Captain
7 years ago

Customize Dynamic Filter

The Dynamic filters on the left of a report are great, but when there's a ton of values it can become a bit cumbersome. 

Is there a native way to customize the look/input type of the dynamic filters, to ideally help with such a situation? 

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  • EvanMartinez's avatar
    EvanMartinez
    Quickbase Staff
    7 years ago
    Hi Alex,

    When in the report there is an option to Customer this Report and open up the report settings. Near the bottom there is a header specifically called out for filters and an option to change that reports dynamic filters where you can set them to use the default dynamic filters (set in your tables report default settings), have no dynamic filters, or to use custom dynamic filters that you select. This allows you to pick out fields that are more relevant as dynamic filters and remove fields with so many choices they become less helpful. It doesn't allow you to alter the data in the fields to trim down options but can help you to assure a report has more useful dynamic filters. I hope this information is helpful Alex. 
    • AlexGale's avatar
      AlexGale
      Qrew Captain
      7 years ago
      I'm aware of all that stuff, but unfortunately it's not exactly what my users are asking for. Really what they wanted was a search function within a specific dynamic filter, but I didn't hold out high hopes for that. 

      Frankly though I think you're right that if we have this field with so many different values, it has already become basically useless as a dynamic filter. I'll see what we can do about trimming that down, and there's obviously going to be a bunch of ways to do that. 

      Thanks
    • EvanMartinez's avatar
      EvanMartinez
      Quickbase Staff
      7 years ago
      Yes unfortunately there isn't an option to set up a Dynamic filter to be searchable right in that side pane. A report can be set to use an Ask the User filter in the report settings. For example set up so that I can search Company Name by Ask the User. This way when the report is opened they could type in part of a name and all the possible matches would be returned when they hit enter. The problem with this is it does not provide many prompts for the user while still typing values in, it doesn't search until they finish. Thank you very much for your time today Alex. 
    • AlexGale's avatar
      AlexGale
      Qrew Captain
      7 years ago
      I didn't know about that ask a user filter. That might end up coming in handy. Thanks for your help. 
  • AdamKeever1's avatar
    AdamKeever1
    Qrew Commander
    7 years ago
    Is it true that you cannot use a formula field as a filter in a report?
  • QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
    QuickBaseCoachD
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    It used to be true,  but that was enhanced maybe a year or two ago, so that any text formula field can also be a Dynamic Filer.
  • AdamKeever1's avatar
    AdamKeever1
    Qrew Commander
    7 years ago
    Snap. Do you know how i can take a date field and return just the year then convert it to text?
    • AdamKeever1's avatar
      AdamKeever1
      Qrew Commander
      7 years ago
      Nevermind... just used left since the year is the first four digits in the field.