Ad hoc filtering/slicing?

[William_Porter]

Is there a way for a user to create a quick ad hoc filter of a view? For example, say a view contains a long list of addresses. One user might want to see only addresses in Texas. Another user might (at about the same time) like to filter by zip code. Can this be done? Or do I have to anticipate every possible find users might want to do and create slices for all of them? Just to say that out loud reveals how crazy that would be so I feel sure I’m missing something. But I’ve looked and can’t find answer to this question.

William

[Aleksi]

Have you thought to use search functionality?

[adehartcal]

The problem with Search is that the results are in a read-only system view that we can’t modify or enhance. Users want to search / filter and then take action on the results.

[Steve]

adehartcal:

The problem with Search is that the results are in a read-only system view that we can’t modify or enhance.

What does that mean?

adehartcal:

Users want to search / filter and then take action on the results.

This is readily doable with a separate table to receive the filter parameters, a view to enter parameters, a slice to filter the content table according to the parameters, and a view to display the results.

[adehartcal]

I meant that Assistant search returns are displayed in a system view that we cannot alter. AFAIK this is the only way to search for multiple parameters, or to filter down search results to narrow down the results. It works pretty well, but once you have the results, can we do anything with them, just as create an action to send those results to another view?

I have twelve parameters that a user can search on in our current app. Is your approach (table, view, slice and another view) feasible for that many parms? Could a user see the results in the same view that they entered the filter parameters, so that they can add another filter to further narrow results, or would they need to start over again from the first view to re-enter parameters?

[Steve]

adehartcal:

Is your approach (table, view, slice and another view) feasible for that many parms?

Sure.

adehartcal:

Could a user see the results in the same view that they entered the filter parameters

Yep.

adehartcal:

so that they can add another filter to further narrow results

Yep.

adehartcal:

would they need to start over again from the first view to re-enter parameters?

Wouldn’t be a requirement, no.

[adehartcal]

Excellent! Can you show me how? Is there a sample solution that demos this?

[Austin]

A very basic explanation is you need a detail view that contains a column per field you want to be able to search, so my use case was Name, Phone, Score, Days since Application, etc.
You filter this detail view down to a single record using a slice that it limited to the current user (it helps if you are controlling the users of the app yourself when creating this).
So from here all you need to do is make the view you want to see your records in filtered down by the column values in the filter. Your expression can go anyway you want really. So as you change your Filter, your view will filter down as well since slices can update locally.

[adehartcal]

FYI, this same feature request here: Add filter capability on top of the columns

[Austin]

Doing this feature the way described above would allow for better control of the parameters and how the user will actually use the filter feature. That feature request would be better than the current search but would not give nearly the same functionality.

[Lynn]

Have you tried any grouping?

[adehartcal]

@Austin_Lambeth, @Steve - Thank you for all your help. As a wanna-be AppSheet maker, I hope to be as helpful to this community as both of you have been. I truly appreciated it.

[Austin]

I have to make up for my stupid questions with “smart” answers