Filter a dashboard

There are two ways to let a reader narrow what a dashboard shows. Filter widgets sit on the canvas like any other widget. The filter panel is a strip down the side of the published view. They are configured in different places and it is worth knowing which one you want before you start.

Filter widgets

The Filters group in the widget library holds four:

Filter List — a scrolling list of values. Filter Boxes — checkboxes. Filter Combo — a dropdown, the most compact. Filter Buttons — values as a row of buttons, good for four or five options.

Drag one onto the canvas and bind it the same way as any other widget: drag the column you want to filter on from the Data panel onto it. It then fills itself with the distinct values in that column.

These take up canvas space, which makes them a good fit when the filter is part of what the dashboard is about — a course selector above a chart of courses. They are a poor fit when you simply need somewhere to put six filters.

The filter panel

The panel is a strip the published view shows down one side, holding filters that apply to the whole dashboard. Open it with Filters in the toolbar.

Add a filter by dragging a column from the data sources list into the panel. The panel says as much in the space where the filters will go. As with widgets, dragging is the only way to create one.

Each filter has a name, a type, and an operator. The types are text, number, date, yes/no, dropdown, multi-select, date range, and number range. A dropdown or multi-select gets its options either from the distinct values in the column or from a custom list you type in, one value per line.

You can also give a filter a default value, and reorder filters by dragging them.

How much control the reader gets

Each filter carries a visibility setting, and this is what decides how useful the panel is:

Required — the reader is prompted for a value before the dashboard opens. Use it when the dashboard means nothing unfiltered, and use it sparingly, because it puts a form in front of every reader every time.

Locked — shown, but the reader cannot change it. Useful for showing a constraint rather than hiding it: “this is last quarter only”.

Hidden — the default is applied silently and the filter never appears. This is effectively a permanent constraint on the dashboard.

Anything not marked with one of these is a normal filter the reader can set and clear.

Panel settings

Two settings control the panel as a whole. Show filter panel in published view decides whether readers see it at all — a panel full of filters stays invisible to readers until this is switched on. Panel width sets how wide it is in pixels, defaulting to 280.

There is also a switch for whether required filters prompt before the dashboard opens.

Which to use

Use filter widgets when the filter is part of what the dashboard is showing and there are only one or two of them. Use the panel when there are several, when they apply to everything on the page, or when you need required, locked, or hidden behaviour, which widgets cannot do.

Next

Publish and version gets the dashboard in front of the readers who will use these filters.