Searching for data using Filters will most certainly be a daily part of the user experience with the Workflow.
Learn in this article:
- How to set and save Filters
- how to edit and delete saved Filters
- how to perform an exact search for unfiltered and filtered data
1. Overview
While Filters only occur in Filter bars, searches can occur both in Filter bars as well as in search bars. However, the handling of the search does not differ, which is why a detailed description of the use of the search field in a search bar has been omitted.
The following illustration gives an overview of the Filter bar structure, which consists of the following functions: Set Filter [1], Save, Apply and Delete Filter [2], Active Filters [3], the Remove All button [4], the Refresh results icon [5] and the Search Field [6] for searching specific items and the selection options [7].
Figure 1: The Filter bar
2. Apply, Edit and Delete Filters
2.1. Apply a Filter
In order to apply a Filter, you must first select a menu item that leads to a list with a Filter bar. The easiest way to do this is to use the lists in the menu item Article, Order or Production Order. The following description is based on the Article List which you can select under Articles > List of articles.
Figure 2: The Article List with no filters applied.
To set a Filter, click Set Filter [8] or No Filter Set [9] in the Filter bar.
After clicking, the Filter Options dialog opens, where you can access all available Filter criteria in the Add Filter [10] drop-down menu. For example, if you want to see all Articles from a Customer that have the Status Ready for Print, you have to:
- in Add Filter, select the Customer entry and
- in Add Filter select the entry Status
The Filter Options dialog should then appear as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Filter Options dialog with two added but not yet specified Filters
-
Select the Customer: Click on Add... [11] to access the list of all Customers. For a large list, you can also type a few letters of the Customer name to reduce the number of listed Customer names. If you select the desired Customer, a label with the Customer name will be added at the end.
- Selection of Status: You can proceed with the second criterion Status. The list of possible Status' is relatively short, which makes selecting the Status a bit easier.
Figure 4: The figure shows the Filter Options dialog after selecting the criteria of Customer: Prepress Digital Softwareentwicklung GmbH and Status: Final Artwork.
Remove Filter
If you want to remove a criterion from the Filter Options dialog, you can do this by clicking Remove Filter [12].
Selecting additional criteria
If you want to display Articles with the status Approved as well as Articles with the status Final Artwork, you must add this additional status as a new criteria. Simply click next to or below the existing label to select another value.
- Applying the Filter: When all criteria are defined, press Apply [13]. This closes the Filter Options dialog and displays the selected content in the Set Filter [14] area (see Figure 5).
2.2. Editing and Removing Filters
If you want to change or remove the active Filter, several options are available:
- Delete criterion – click on the X [15] to the right of the criterion description
- Remove Filter – click on Remove All [16]
- Change criterion – click again on Set Filter [17] or on a label in the Active Filter area. This opens the Filter Options dialog again.
Figure 5: The Filter bar with two Filter criteria applied
3. Save and reapply existing Filters
To apply Filter criteria on a regular basis, the Workflow offers the option of saving the current Filter settings for reuse.
Note that Filters are stored locally in the browser. This means that a saved Filter cannot be used on another computer and that all the existing Filters will be removed when the browser cache is deleted.
3.1. Save or update Filter
The current Filter settings can be saved for later use as follows:
- Click on the drop-down menu (down arrow) to the right of Set Filter [18]
- select Save as... [19]
Figure 6: Saving Filter criteria
- This opens the Save Filter dialog, where you can enter the name of the Filter [20].
- To save the name click Save.
Figure 7: the Save Filter dialog
- The Save Filter dialog closes and the name of the saved Filter is displayed in the Save Filter Set dialog and in the Filter selection list as an active Filter.
Figure 8: The stored Filter is active
3.2. Update, deactivate or delete saved Filters
If a stored Filter has been selected, it can either be updated and over-written or deactivated.
Update Filter
Proceed as follows:
- Select a saved filter from the filter list.
- Change a value for the filter either by deleting a criterion or by changing the filter, so that the saved filter no longer matches the current filter.
- If the current filter does not match the saved filter, the name for the filter in the Set Filter [22] button will be displayed in italics and an asterisk (*) will appear at the end.
- To update the saved filter with the new filter criteria, select Save [23].
Figure 9: The filter bar and the filter menu after criteria have been changed.
Deactivate a Filter
You can quickly deactivate a saved filter by clicking Remove All [25].
Delete a Saved Filter
To delete saved Filter criteria, you must:
- Select the entry in the Filter drop-down menu
- Press Delete [24] in the same menu
- The Filter is permanently deleted. The Filter can only be restored by setting it again.
4. Refreshing Lists
For various reasons, a list may not reflect the current status of the Workflow. For example, background uploads or Preflight operations may take a long time, colleagues are also working on jobs, or the page may simply have been called a long time ago.
In these situations, you can use the Refresh list icon [26] to reload and thus update the displayed list.
Figure 10: Click on the Refresh icon to update the list.
5. Refine search results
Regardless whether a Filter has already been applied or not, the results of a list can be refined by entering text in the Search field [27]. To specify exactly which results (columns) should be searched, use the drop-down selection menu to select the fields to be searched [28].
Figure 10: Filter bar with the Search field
Attention: If the search does not return the desired or expected hits, check the Search in criteria.
The "Search in" selections are saved in the Workflow, it could be that in a previous session you excluded one or more fields from the search in a special list and therefore do not currently see the desired search results... Check your active fields in which you want to search.
The search in the selection menu allows you to limit the search to certain columns of the list. Depending on the selected list, the scope of the selection menu can vary.
5.1. Search criteria for the »Article List«.
By default, the following fields are included in the search (deactivate the fields you do not need):
- ID
- Name
- Ext. ID (external ID)
- Substrate
- Collection
- Process step
5.2. Search criteria for »Collections«
By default, the following fields are included in the search (deactivate the ones you don't need):
- Name
- Comment
- Ext. ID (external ID)
5.3. Search criteria for »Orders«
By default, the following fields are included in the search (deactivate the fields you do not need):
- Order number
- Order title
- Order item description
- Customer names
- Order information
- Order status
5.4. Search criteria for »Print Item List«
By default, the following fields are included in the search (deactivate the fields you do not need):
- ID
- Name
5.5. Search criteria for »Production Jobs«
By default, the following fields are included in the search (deactivate the fields you do not need):
- Prod. no. (Production Job number)
- Tags
- Comment
- Substrate
- Printer Configuration