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Filters overview

Last update: Thu Jan 04 2024 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

CREATED FOR:

  • User

You can use filters in Adobe Workfront to reduce the amount of information you display on the screen in lists, reports, or other areas.

NOTE
This article describes all areas where you can apply filters in Workfront, as well as general information about filters in lists and reports. Refer to the articles linked below to find out information about filters in specific areas other than lists and reports.

Types of Workfront filters

There are several types of filters in Workfront. All filters fulfill the same purpose of limiting the amount of information you display on the screen.

The following are types of filters that you can use in Workfront:

Temporary filters
A one-time quick filter based on a keyword search to quickly find an item in a list.
Permanent filters for lists and reports
Built by Workfront or customized by you or other users. You can use them more than one time. If you have the correct access and permissions, you can name, save, and reuse them in several areas. You can also share these filters with other users. They are available in lists or reports of objects.
Temporary or permanent filters for special areas
Built by Workfront or customized by you or other users. You can save permanent filters and use more than one time, or you can apply them temporarily to serve your immediate needs, without saving them. Unsaved filters cannot be shared or deleted. They are available in special areas, as described in the section Workfront filters for special areas in this article.

Workfront temporary filters

Quick filters allow you to search for an item on the screen using a keyword. After you refresh the page, the temporary quick filter is cleared. You cannot save temporary filters to reuse.

For information about quick filters, see Apply the quick filter to a list.

Workfront permanent filters for lists and reports

You can use permanent filters that you, others, or Workfront created in lists or reports of objects.

For information about objects in Workfront and which ones you can build reports for, see Adobe Workfront objects overview.

For more information about filters in lists and reports, see the following articles:

Workfront filters for special areas workfront-filters-for-special-areas

You can use either built-in filters or build custom filters in the following areas of Workfront:

Overview of filters in lists and reports

When working with lists and reports, you can filter information on the screen with the following types of filters:

  • built-in filters
  • new filters you or others create from scratch
  • customized existing filters that others created and shared with you
  • copied and edited filters based on existing filters
IMPORTANT
When creating or editing filters in reports, you must edit the report in order for the new filter to become the default filter for the report. When you edit just the filter, outside the report builder, the default filter of the report is not updated.
For information about editing a report, see the article Create a custom report.

For information about Workfront lists, see Get started with lists in Adobe Workfront.

For information about Workfront reports, see Get started with reports.

Consider the following when working with filters in lists or reports:

  • You can customize existing filters in lists and reports. All users who have permissions to the filters can also see your changes.

  • Your Workfront administrator must grant you Edit access to filters, views, and groupings to create permanent filters.

    For more information, see Grant access to filters, views, and groupings.

  • Your level of permissions to a filter determines how filters are saved. If you created the filter originally, you can save the changes. Otherwise, you are prompted to save a new version of the filter that you are modifying.

    note tip
    TIP
    Keep in mind that if you make changes to a filter you have shared with others, the changes impact them as well.

  • You can customize a filter that was shared with you only if the user who shared it granted you Manage access. For information about sharing a filter, see Share a filter, view, or grouping.

Elements of a filter

When you build a filter, you connect multiple elements together that make up filter statements. You can have multiple filter statements that define the criteria for your filter.

This is an example of the standard filter builder:

Standard filter builder

This is an example of the legacy filter builder:

Legacy filter builder

A filter contains the following elements:

Object

The Workfront database object of the filter. For information about what objects are reportable in Workfront, see Adobe Workfront objects overview.

For example, projects, tasks, issues, users, or documents can be the object of a filter.

Field

The attribute of the object that you are filtering by.

For example, you can filter by Portfolio Name, or Project Owner. In these case, Name and Owner are fields of the Portfolio and Project objects.

Value
The actual name of the field in Workfront. For example, Complete can be the value of a Project Status field.
Operator
Connects multiple filter statements. For information, see the section Filter operators in this article.
Modifier
Indicates what kind of information you want your data to match. For information, see the section Filter modifiers in this article.

Filter operators filter-operators

Workfront has two filter operators that connect each filter statement:

  • AND: When you join two filter statements by the AND operator, you indicate that you want both filter statements to be met at the same time.

    By default, the statements in a filter are joined by the AND operator.

  • OR: When you join two filter statements by the OR operator, you indicate that you want either statement to be met.

    note tip
    TIP
    When changing your AND statements to OR statements, the number of the items in your report should increase.

Filter modifiers filter-modifiers

You can use filter modifiers to indicate what kind of information you want your data to match.

INFO
Example:
You can filter for projects that have a Percent Complete of 100%. In this case, you can use the “equal” modifier in the following filter statement:
Project: Percent Complete Equal(Case Sensitive) 100

For more information about filter modifiers, see Filter and condition modifiers.

Create filters in the builder interface

You can create a filter using the standard or legacy builder interface in the following ways:

  • From scratch
  • Modify an existing filter
  • Copy an existing filter

For information about creating a filter using the standard or legacy builder interface, see Create or edit filters in Adobe Workfront.

Create filters using the text mode interface

You can build filters using the text mode interface. We recommend to build most of the filter statements using the standard or legacy builder interface, and to edit the code of the filter only as a final step. Building a filter from scratch using the text mode interface alone is not recommended.

For more information about creating a filter using the text mode interface, see Edit a filter using text mode.

Create filters for complex fields

You can create filters for complex fields, such as fields whose values contain commas and fields whose values are a multi-select custom field.

Create filters for fields whose values contain commas create-filters-for-fields-whose-values-contain-commas

When building a filter in text mode and filtering for field values that contain commas, you must add a slash (“/”) before the commas separating the values, to ensure that the value is read as one filter option. This only applies for the following field types:

  • Dropdowns
  • Radio buttons
  • Check boxes

For example, you have a radio button field on a project called “Color” and the options for it are:

  • Red
  • Blue
  • Red, blue

If you want to build a filter that would find only projects where the third option is selected, the filter statement in the text mode interface should be:

DE:check=red/, blue

DE:check_Mod=in

This syntax ensures that the values are read together, as one option. If you omit the slash, Workfront reads the comma as an OR, in which case only the projects that have either the first or the second option would be selected.

This syntax also applies when building prompts. For more information about using prompts, see Add a prompt to a report.

Create filters for whose values are a multi-select custom field create-filters-for-whose-values-are-a-multi-select-custom-field

You can report on multi-select custom fields. For example, you can report on fields that are check boxes.

However, when you want to exclude results that have only one of the options selected, the report will display any objects that have that option and any other option selected.

For example, if you have a field with 3 options (A, B, and C), and select 2 of the 3 options (A and B, but not C) on an object, you can create a report with a filter with a qualifier of Not Equal for options A and B, and it will only filter out projects that have both A and B, but not only A, and not only B selected. If you create a filter with a qualifier for Not Equal for option A, it will only filter out objects with only A selected, but if A and B are selected, those objects still display in the report.

Limitations about joining multiple filter rules

You can reference only five objects, excluding the object of the report, when you build a filter in Workfront.

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