NOTE: This feature is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise versions of both Spectra and myStratus Desktop.

PATHWAYS TO SUCCESS...   Filters are a very powerful business tool. They help you look at your data in new ways, give you insights into your clients, help you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing promotions, and even perform custom financial analysis. It is well worth your time to learn how to create more advanced filters!

Each filter you create is made up of one or more filter conditions. (A condition is simply a field, plus an operator, plus a value.) This topic will look at examples of filters that include multiple conditions, including a basic filter with a couple of conditions, along with a more advanced filter that uses more than one set of criteria. See Using the Filter Builder for more ideas for creating and using basic filters.

Basic Filter with Multiple Conditions

Example: Basic Filter with Two Conditions

Let's create a filter to find all invoices with a open balance greater than $1,500 AND with a client phone number in the 651 area code. To do this, we'll need to create two conditions.

1. Go to Tools > Design Tools > Filter Builder.

2. Click New to create a new filter.

3. Give the filter a name and then select Invoices as the filter type.

4. Make sure the very first line in the Criteria section reads "Find the records where all of the following apply:"

5. On the second line, choose Invoices > Open Balance as the field.

6. Select Greater Than as the operator.

7. Type in "1500" as the value.

8. Click the next line to add a new condition.

9. Select Client>Home Phone as the field.

10. Select Starts With as the operator.

11. Type in "(651)" as the value.

12. Click Load Filter Results to display the invoices matching the conditions.
    
    

13. Click OK to save the filter.

Advanced Filters using Criteria Groups

Advanced filters not only contain multiple conditions, they also contain multiple groups of conditions (called "Criteria Groups"). To find what you're looking for, sometimes you may need to group two required conditions with another condition that is not required. To do this, you can create an Advanced Filter. 

For example, if you want to see all your clients who are in the wedding group OR the family group, AND have an email address (so that you can send an email to all of those people), you will need to create two Criteria Groups and then define the relationship between the two. Let's look at an example.

Example: Advanced Filter with Two Criteria Groups

Let's create a filter to see all the portrait or wedding sessions that occurred after January 1, 2013.

1. Select Sessions in the filter type drop-down list.

2. Make sure the very first line in the Criteria section says "Find the records where all of the following apply:"

3. Select Sessions > Session Date as the first field.

4. Select Is Greater Than as the operator.

5. Type in "1/1/2013" as the value.

6. At this point our filter is set to find all sessions that have occurred since January 1, 2013.

7. Now click the Add New Criteria Group button. Notice how the next set of lines is indented.

8. Choose Any as the relationship for the conditions in the new group (see below).

9. Select Session > Session Type as the field for the first line of the new group.

10. Select Is Equal To as the operator.

11. Select Portrait from the drop-down list as the value.

12. On the next line, select Session > Session Type as the field.

13. Select Is Equal To as the operator.

14. Select Wedding from the drop-down list as the value for this condition.

15. Click Load Filter Results.
    
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16. Click OK to save the filter.