Filters: Overview

What do filters do?

Filters extract information that meets specific criteria, from the database . For example, records that show either typical or extreme situations, or that apply to a particular time, place, or person.

If filters are not applied to the data or the component, then users can see everything.

What parts of the system can you apply filters to?

You can apply filters to:

What are optional, mandatory, tree view top node and user defined filters?

Filter type	Notes
Optional	An optional filter is one that is created by an Administrator (via the Admin menu) and that users can choose to apply/not apply (toggle on/off).
Mandatory	A mandatory filter is one designed by an Administrator, that is always applied.
Optional/ Mandatory Tree View Top Node Filter Note: only applies to hierarchical lookups.	You can also apply a Tree View Top Node filter to either an optional or mandatory filter. Such a filter can significantly improve the load time for tree views - especially for tree views containing a large amount of data, which are combined with complex filtering. The value which is returned by this filter will determine the topmost level of a hierarchy tree from which a user can select a value.
User Defined Filters	Filters which are created by Business Users to filter List Views to suit their own needs. These filters can be managed (changed, deleted) by Administrators.

Designers can create optional and mandatory filters that can apply to fields, relationships, views, and component definitions. Make sure you don't put the same filter into the Optional and Mandatory fields for the same object.

Also note that the Tree View Top Node Filter must return a subset of the related optional or mandatory filter. E.g. the filter result for the Optional Tree View Top Node Filter must be within the results which are returned by the Optional Filter.

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Filters do not offer security to the underlying object; they are only a usability device. For example you can apply a mandatory filter to a view to restrict the user from viewing employee records in their own department. If the user accesses another view of that data or comes into it from another perspective (for example through an email link), then the data displays.
You can use User profile details in filters.