Creating Filters

Filters offer an excellent means of gaining control of the data within a project, particularly when you have many tasks and resources. A filter applies a condition or criterion as a means of selecting those tasks (or resources) that satisfying, and then either highlights them amongst the others, or displays them exclusively.

Microsoft Project offers you many filters that are part of the system. This means that they are contained in the 'Global.mpt' template file that you will find on your system. This file also contains all of the views, tables, groups and other features that are available to you as part of a default blank project.

We are able to create our own template files, and populate them with customised versions of these entities, i.e. those we create ourselves. We can even add them to the Global file to make the routinely available.

Before we show how filters are created, let us examine some existing ones. First make sure you have some tasks in the list. You can then implement the filters by finding a drop-down list on the toolbar which currently shows the words 'All Tasks', (meaning that no filter is currently being applied). If you don't see this list, you may have to peek in the additional toolbar area marked by the double small arrow button. Experiment with filters such as 'Critical', 'Milestones' and others.

In order to create filter it is a good idea to understand how the existing filters were put together. To do so, let us view their definition. From the menu options choose 'Project - Filtered For - More Filters'

Select the 'Critical' filter and then click the 'Edit' button. The form you will see is probably self-explanatory but shows you how the 'Critical' filter is defined.

A checked 'Show in Menu' option indicates that this filter will appear in the drop-down list off the toolbar. Notice how the criterion is expressed. It makes use of a field called 'Critical' which Microsoft Project forces to the value 'Yes' for tasks which are critical. We are simply asking to see just those tasks, i.e. those whose 'critical' value has been set to this value.

All criteria are represented in this way, i.e. a field is related by means of a test to a value.

Let us now create a filter that finds all tasks that have a duration equal to 20 days. Instead of 'Edit' on the form above, choose 'New' to get a blank form. Fill in an appropriate filter name (eg 'Long durations') and select 'Duration' for the field, 'equals' for the Test and then enter 20 days in the Value column.

If you were seeking critical tasks that were both 20 days long and critical you would enter a second row on the form containing the 'critical' criterion described above. Place an 'And' in the And/Or column to join these two criteria and test your results.

You can add as many filters as you need.

Interactive Filters
Now try the filter in the list called 'Date Range …'. The three dots at the end indicate that this is an interactive filter, i.e. one that requires more information from you before it can be activated. When you run it, wait for the prompt and then enter a date and hit 'OK'. You will be asked for a second date. The filter will then find those tasks that occur between these dates. Let us set up a create filter of our own.

Choose 'Project - Filtered For - More Filters - New'

Call the filter 'Critical long tasks' and check the 'Show in Menu' option.

Enter the critical criterion as shown above and join this with the next statement using an 'And'. Now enter the duration criterion as before except that instead of entering a fixed value such as 20days in the Value field, enter a prompt between double quotes and followed by a question mark. For example

"Please enter a suitable duration"?

When you run the filter, this prompt will appear, allowing you to respond with a particular value for the duration and which the filter will apply this time. Try it!

In a future article we will show how you can import and export filters created like this in one to and from other project files.