About creating temporary or reusable filters

In Visma.net ERP, you can use simple filters to quickly filter data in table columns, and advanced filters with complicated logical expressions to view only the data you need.
You can create two types of advanced filters:

  • Temporary: A temporary filter is a filter for short-term use (the current session) that you can set up in a report window to fine-tune the basic report parameters.
  • Reusable: A reusable filter is a filter you can set up on a processing or inquiry window to filter the data for future uses of the window.

This topic describes the design of temporary and reusable filters.

For more information about filter types, see About the presentation of data.

For both temporary and reusable filters, you use the Filter settings table to add, edit, delete, and manage advanced filters.
With reusable filters, the table is a part of the Filter settings dialog box (for details, see Reusable filter settings dialog box).
With temporary filters, you can find the Filter settings table on the Additional sort and Filters tab of the report window; the table has the Additional filtering conditions heading.
For more information, see: About the presentation of data.

A filter clause is a part of a filter represented by a table row in the Filter settings table.
Any advanced filter consists of either one filter clause or multiple filter clauses.
For each clause, you specify the following settings in the table row:

  • Property:
    The entity type associated with the particular table or report that the filter will be applied to.
    You select a property from the list of available entity types.
  • Condition:
    The logical operation that applies to the value of the selected property.
    You select a condition from the list of available conditions.
  • Value:
    The value for the logical condition used to filter the data.
    Depending on the selected property and condition, you enter a value (and sometimes a second value as well, depending on the condition).
    Each value must conform with the data type of the selected property.
    Generally, there are a series of fixed values are fixed for the property, such as the Completed value for the Status property.
    The filtering process is not case-sensitive; that is, the system doesn't differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters in values.

To define a clause, you specify the property, the condition, and the applicable values in the table row.
For example: In the Task (EP404000) window, you can search for completed tasks by specifying a filter that has Status specified as the property, Equals specified as the condition, and Completed specified as the value.

You use And and Or operators and parentheses to group clauses into logical expressions.
You use the And operator to find the records that meet the criteria in both the selected clause and the next clause.
You use the Or operator to find the records that meet the criteria in either the selected clause or the next clause.
You can use parentheses to combine clauses into units as parentheses are used in logical statements to define the order of operations.
The And and Or operators work on a unit in parentheses as if the unit was a single clause.

If you try to filter the data by using a string that contains an underscore, the result will also contain the values with the same string with any symbol instead of the underscore.
For example: If you try to filter the data by a customer name that contains the Customer_name string, the system will return all the customers whose name contains any of the following strings: Customer_name, Customer-name, and Customer name.
The reason that all of these strings will be returned is that the underscore is used as a wild card character.

To simplify the process of filtering data by owner or by work group, three predefined user-relative parameters are available in the system.
By using these parameters, you can configure user-relative clauses.
When you use these parameters, you do not need to create multiple rows with specific values—for example, to specify each work group in which you are a member for the Workgroup property. Instead, you can use only one parameter, such as @MyGroups, to filter the all records of work groups you are a member of.

You can find the full list of user-relative parameters below:

  • @Me:
    The current user. This parameter can be used only for the user-related properties (such as Owner or Custodian) that have Equal and Does not equal conditions.
  • @MyGroups:
    The work groups in which the current user is a member, excluding the work groups that are the subordinates of these work groups.
    You can use this parameter for the Workgroup property, which has the Is in and Is not in conditions.
  • @MyWorktree:
    The work groups in which the current user is a member, including the groups that are subordinates of these groups according to the company tree structure.
    You can use this parameter for the Workgroup property, which has the Is In and Is Not In conditions.

For the user-relative clauses, the system will filter data by the user currently signed in (by using the @Me parameter), or by the work group or work groups the signed-in user is a member of (by using the @MyGroups or @MyWorktree parameter).

To make date clauses in reusable filters more flexible, you can use date-relative parameters—parameters that are relative to the current date.

  • Date-relative parameters cannot be used in temporary filters on report windows.
  • For the date-relative parameters, the system uses as the current date the date (in coordinated universal time, or UTC) of the server used to run the Visma.net ERP instance. Changing the business date (in the upper-right corner of the screen) does not affect the filter results.

Below you can find the full list of date-relative parameters:

  • @Today:
    The current date as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting days.
  • @WeekStart:
    The start of the current week as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting weeks.

    The start and end of the week are determined according to the default system locale or the locale you selected when you signed in to Visma.net ERP.
    The system locales are specified and configured in the System locales (SM200550) (SM200550) window.

  • @WeekEnd:
    The end of the current week as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting weeks.

    The start and end of the week are determined according to the default system locale or the locale you selected when you signed in to Visma.net ERP.
    The system locales are specified and configured in the System locales (SM200550) (SM200550) window.

  • @MonthStart:
    The start of the current month as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting months.
  • @MonthEnd:
    The end of the current month as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting months.
  • @QuarterStart:
    The start of the current quarter as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting quarters.
  • @QuarterEnd:
    The end of the current quarter as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting quarters.
  • @PeriodStart:
    The start of the current financial period.
    The financial periods are defined in the Financial year (GL101000) (GL101000) window, and the current date is specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting financial periods.
  • @PeriodEnd:
    The end of the current financial period.
    The financial periods are defined in the Financial year (GL101000) (GL101000) window, and the current date is specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting financial periods.
  • @YearStart:
    The start of the current calendar year as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting years.
  • @YearEnd:
    The end of the current calendar year as specified on the server used to run your Visma.net ERP instance.
    You can modify this parameter by adding or subtracting months.

To add a filter clause with a date-relative parameter, you select the parameter from the list.

You can modify the parameters by adding or subtracting integers.
The date is calculated according to the measurement of the parameter.

The system cannot find any records if the modified date is out of range, and will return an error.