Report Wizard Filter Fields Tab

On this tab you specify information that you want to include in this report. For example, filter on the resource name Tom if you only want to see information about him in the results. Why would you use the filter feature instead of Excel's built-in filtering? There are two main reasons.

  • If you run a report frequently you can avoid the tedious process of setting up your Excel filters each time
  • You can also set up "negative" reports that only return data if a condition is met. For example, show me all projects with a margin less than 25%.
  • If the report is distributed you can limit access to information. For instance, a project profitability report emailed out can limit manager XX from seeing the profitability of her coworker's projects.

Projector allows filtering on all row and data fields. For a limited number of fields, Projector also supports recipient/submitter targeting. This allows you to customize a distributed report so the recipient only sees information relative to themselves. This is especially useful if you distribute a report to all your project managers, but only want the targeted project manager to see information about their own projects. See the Resource section in the table below for more details.

The Topic of the Day: Reporting Overview webinar is a great resource to learn all about Distribution, Personalization and Scheduling Reports (go to 45:10).

Fast Filters

If you see a filter colored green, that indicates it is a fast filter. Fast filters are optimized to return results much more quickly than non-green ones. Not all report types support fast filters.

Examples

How you enter information depends on the data type of the field. Obviously a text field expects different information than a date field. Below are examples of each data field type in Projector. Projector also supports advanced search queries. See the search syntax section below to learn more.

Type

Notes

Example

Text

Separate each search string with a line break. In this case we return results for resource's whose names are Tom, Steve or John. Projector also supports the ! operator. Put an exclamation point before a name to include everything except it.

Integer

Separate each search string with a line break. In this case we return results for vendors with numbers of 10001, 10002 or 10003

Yes/No

Type out the response you want. Yes or No. In this case we return results for all unpaid invoices.

Date

You may specify both dates, just a start date, or just an end date. This allows you to narrow your search down to a specific date range, everything up to a certain date or everything before a certain date.

The relative dates area is very powerful. You can specify negative numbers to search for data in the past and positive numbers to search for data in the future. You can also toggle between days, weeks, months, and years of data. For example, If I wanted information from last month and this month I would enter -1 Month, 0 Month.

Dates are relative to the date on which the report is run. For example, if you run the report today, -1 days would be yesterday.

PercentEnter the percentage the upper and lower bounds in decimal format. For example, .25 instead of 25%. In this example we get all projects with a likelihood between 25 and 75 percent. You can leave one or the other field blank to make the search open ended.
Resource

If a field contains a resource's display name, then two additional options are presented. Value matches submitter's name and Value matches recipient's name. These settings cause the person either receiving the report or requesting the report to have the information filtered on their own name. This has two benefits. First, the report will only contain information relevant to the person looking at it. This removes clutter. Second, if you distribute a report to large group of resources, then you don't need to create a personalized report for each recipient. Instead, the report is personalized at the time it is delivered. Projector supports filtering for the following fields:

  • Resource Display Name
  • Project Manager Display Name
  • Engagement Manager Display Name
  • Resource UDFs

Special Search Characters

Filters support special characters to refine your results. White space is trimmed from the tokens unless they are enclosed in double quotes. 

Character

Search Phrase Example

Results

space

Fred Smith

Match if a field contains both words in any order. Acts like AND. This search phrase is true for both Fred Smith and Smith Fred.

pipe

Fred | Smith

Match if a field contains either word. Acts like OR. This search phrase is true for Fred or Smith.

spaces and pipe

Fred Smith | Mary Jones

Match if a field contains both Fred and Smith in any order or if the field contains both Mary and Jones in any order.

double quotes

"Fred Smith"

Search for the exact enclosed phrase. This search phrase is true for Fred Smith, but not for Smith Fred. Everything inside double quotes is taken literally. So "|" would search for a pipe. There is no way to search for double quotes.

underscore

Fred_Smith

A single wild character. This would match for Fred Smith, but also matches FredQSmith. A single underscore character can also mean "not null."

percent

Fred%Smith

Multiple wild characters. This would match for FredSmith, Fred Smith, FredQSmith and Fred Jonathan Smith.

circumflex (shift-6)

^Fred
Fred^
^Fred^

Match the beginning or end of a string. Just searching for fred would also match Alfred. In the first example Alfred matches. In the second example, both Fred and Alfred match. In the third example, only exactly Fred matches.

exclamation point

!Fred

Search for anything that does not contain the string. Return all results that do not contain Fred. To exclude multiple values use a row like this:

!Fred !John

blank line


Null or empty fields will be returned. Useful if you wanted to find a field that is not filled in.

I recommend entering two double quotes instead though. "" - this is because it is obvious when looking at your filters tab what is going on!

Supported Reports

Supported Reports

Accounting Analysis

Accounting Balances

Baseline Variance

Cost Card

Engagement Portfolio

Engagement

Ginsu

Invoice Milestone

Time Card

Invoice

Issue

Project List

Project Portfolio Report

Resource

Task Analysis

Time Transfer

Unbilled Time and Cost Aging

Utilization

Variance

Unsupported Reports

Unsupported Reports

Rate Card

RDC Card

Resource Schedule

User

Optimized Reports

The Ginsu report has speed optimizations when filtering on the following fields.

Field
Project Name
Project Code 
Project
Project Stage
Project Manager
Engagement Manager
Engagement Type      
Resource            
Resource Display Name 
Resource Department
Invoice Number
Hours Status
Hours Type
Cost Code