I would like most of the power of filtering at my finger tips.

The new user and customer tabs are partly heading in the correct direction, but don't allow any field to be used, only one each. The current filter system is only helpful for where the information in the filter won't change all the time. It takes too long to create a filter for a search I might only do once or twice. The search capability only does searching on text fields.

A lot of my searching etc relates to custom fields which are pick lists, so it would be important that all fields possible can be used for filtering.

Filtering on a combination of fields is important, as well as using a range or number of values for some fields. So "logically" we want to an "OR" search between a number of values or a range of values in combination with an "AND" in combination with other fields in the search. ( ( myfield == "value1" || myfield == "value2") && ( mynumberfield >= number1 && mynumberfield <= number2)).

This is especially important when there are thousands of items and we only want to see/ export a few. The filter should also affect outputs like reports or export.

An example of another product which does this very well is Jira.

See http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/features/search.jsp for an example ( you can download a free trial I think if you don't know about them already)

What does everyone think (I have added this as a feature request in the "customer portal")

I have been thinking about how this feature can be implemented in the current UI.

One possibility is to add a tab along side the project, user and customer tabs. In this tab you can choose which items to use for the filtering (or searching). A good reason for putting it here is that these other tabs are doing the same sort of thing - filter what you look at.

Since there are so many fields, especially if there are custom fields, then we might need to choose which ones we want to use. You might allow this by having a popup check box menu, similar to the one used to say which columns are visible.

Once you have selected your fields you then can do your filter/search. You select which fields and items in the fields to search /filter with.

Ideally, which fields are used to filter could be saved with the view, since you might want to search/filter with different values in the same field often.

Good idea, 'on the fly' filtering.

I think the solution for how do do it can even be more simple. For a start, the possibility to select all colums in the 'Search for' field in the toolbar would help a lot. One step further would be to allow for additional search items in the Search for field.

Paul

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Paul Greefhorst
Quadrantr Software BV

Search on all fields would definitely help, especially for those who rely on custom fields. This might deal with half the cases I am thinking of. The only reason to not have this is if they are planning to give us more.

Though, for the case where you want a range of values, or you are wanting to match some values with some fields in combination with other values for other fields then this will not do. I think the extra tab will meet this requirement. Also for cases where I want a range of values the more basic search is not enough.

Thanks

Malcolm

Hey Axosoft

You guys have slipped this last one under my nose.

Which version did you add the search on custom fields? (okay, so you have given me half of what I asked for...)

Thanks

Malcolm

The column headers could also be used to set filter information, similar to the way the new Customer Portal does. This does not fully solve the problem, as it doesn't provide the full filtering power that is called for, but it would be another nice feature.

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Chris
First rule of leadership...everything is your fault.- Hopper

 

MagicM:

Hey Axosoft

You guys have slipped this last one under my nose.

Which version did you add the search on custom fields? (okay, so you have given me half of what I asked for...)

Thanks

Malcolm

Besides the fact that you didn't answer this questions, I did find a small problem with the searching on custom fields.

If you select a custom field and then search, the field reverts back to (ALL), where as if you choose a field like "name" then this stays in the search "in" field.

 

The ability to search in text and picklist custom fields was added in 7.0.  I was able to repro the problem with the search field reverting to (all), so I've added a defect for it into our system.

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Dan Suceava
http://www.axosoft.com