Filters and Shortcuts

Filtering allows you to focus in on just the set of plan data that is important to you at any given point in time.  There are different ways to filter the work in your Projects view:

The Zoom Filter

Select any task or container (project, folder or package), then click the zoom icon that appears on that row.  This will quickly filter you to the task or container of work that you had selected.   You can also multi-select plan items then click any one of the zoom icons in order to filter to more than one task or container at the same time. 

Tip:  when you apply a zoom filter on a project, your result will show you the project structure as well as any package structure that is relevant to that project.   If you want to see only the project structure in your result, hold down the shift key when you click the zoom icon. 

The 'My Items' Icon

To quickly filter to just the work you own, simply click the "filter to my items" icon.  

The Filter Buttons

When you need to filter across different dimensions, the filter buttons are your best friends.  You can filter across six different dimensions at once by simply clicking on the filter buttons and picking different selections from the menus:

• Owner - individual owners or defined teams
• Location - projects or (if relevant) the packages that they live in
• Package - the packages you create to establish priority-overrides for individual tasks
• Client - the client that projects are associated to
• Custom Field - any project or task custom fields that you had created
• Item Status - states like all, active, done, created by, etc. 

When you click one of these six filters, a dialog box pops up opened to that filter object.  In this example I clicked on the Owner filter: 

• Check the boxes to choose the appropriate criteria. Use the search box to easily locate items if your list is long!
• If you'll use this filter set frequently, save it as a custom shared filter.
  
• Click apply to see your results, or...
• Before clicking apply, you can layer in other filters by clicking on the appropriate filter object right there in the open dialog.  
• After setting all of the filters you need, click Apply to see your results. 

Notice that the filter buttons at the top of your plan now show you which filters are currently applied:

Clearing Filters

When you're done working in the filtered state, you can click the reset icon to the far left.  This will clear all of your filters and return you to all active items in a collapsed state.  Click the expand all link in the row right below the filter buttons see all plan items again; or just click the + icon next to specific containers that you want to expand.  

Editing a Saved Filter

To change the criteria for an existing saved filter: 

• Click once on the saved filter in the filter dialog
• Add or remove criteria to the left as necessary
• Click Save and type the same exact name as the existing filter
• Click OK when prompted to overwrite the existing filter 

FYI, we'll be adding a more efficient "edit" function in a future update!

Creating Custom Item Status Filters

The Status filter presents you with a number of predefined options, but you can also create your own custom status filter based on various combinations of criteria: 

Strict Filtering

When you filter for a project, the results include by default both the project structure and any package structure that is relevant to the tasks in that project.  There might be times, however, when you want to see just the project structure in your results.  That's where strict filtering comes in.  Just check the "strict filtering" box at the bottom of the location/project filter dialog:

Shortcuts

The shortcut feature allows you to save a link back to any plan item or filtered set of data.  For instance, you might want to create a shortcut to a frequently used package or a frequently used combination of filters.  You create a short cut in the view gallery:

Shortcuts are filter aware. Let's say you created a custom owner filter, then you created a shortcut to it.  If you change the criteria for that custom filter (maybe you add another owner), your shortcut will recognize that and now deliver results that match your edited custom filter. 

Filters and Container Rollups

When you look at a container (project, sub-folder or package), some columns are a rolled-up total of all the work in that container.   Here is an unfiltered project where Reamaining Effort, Expected Hours and Total done are rolled-up calculations.  

Now let's filter to just Jack's work in that project.  Notice that the rollup values for the project don't change to reflect the filtered set of work:  

The calculated rollup values will always represent the entire set of work for the project, even when you have filters applied.