A filter is a data field that contains some information relevant to a load, such as its Alpha or Commodity or the rego number of the truck used to transport it. You search for loads by selecting a filter field and telling the program what values to look for. It's important to note that, depending on the type of data the field is designed to hold and how important it is in the Load system, it may be empty. For most filter fields you can specify a range ie from and to. For text-type fields, searching is done on the leading characters entered with a notional wildcard for any remaining characters, so for example if you entered the text “ab” in the “From” cell and “abz” in the “To” cell of the filter grid in the filter column for Rego number, all loads with a truck rego starting with “ab” up to any starting with “abz” would be returned eg “aba000”, “ab99zz”, “abz994”, but loads with truck rego numbers starting with “a8”, “aa”, “ac” etc would be excluded.

You can search for load records using one or more of around 50 data fields. If you'd like to be able to use a data field for searching that isn't currently in the drop-down list please get in touch and we'll discuss adding it in a future version. Depending on the type of data stored in the field you might be able to enter a range of values to be selected (eg Truck Rego numbers or Load Alpha). Other fields (eg Load Processed) will be just Yes or No so a range doesn't make sense. We call the set of fields you have defined to use in a search as the Filter fields.

You select a data field to use in your filter by clicking on the desired field from the drop-down list under the Available filter fields caption then clicking the Add Filter button. The field will then appear in the Filters grid (and it will also be removed from the Available filter fields drop-down box):

In this example we have added the Load Processed field, which is a Yes/No type. The initial state of the checkbox with a solid square inside it indicates a “don't care” value, ie either Yes or No. Doesn't make much sense to add that as a filter for a Yes/No field does it! Click inside the square to toggle between the “don't care” value and ticked (Yes) or unticked (No). Note also that because of this field type, only the cell in the From row is available for editing. It doesn't make sense to have a filter for a Yes/No field that can have a From and To values.

Continue to add as many filter fields as you need.

Here in addition to Load Processed = no, we have selected the Commodity name field and selected Wheat in both From and To rows. The two filters are combined, so our results will show all unprocessed loads where the Commodity is Wheat.

If you leave a cell in the Filters grid empty (where allowed), the program will treat that as a wildcard value, ie any data values will be retrieved, bounded by the other value entered, if any. So for example this filter would select all unprocessed loads with a delivery date on or before 31 May 2021:

To remove one or more filter fields from the Filters grid, right-click the column heading for the field you want to remove and click Remove this filter from the popup menu.

To completely clear the Filters grid click the Reset Filters button. This will not affect a saved filter template.

To see the results of your search, click the Apply Filter button. After possibly a short delay, depending on how complex your filters are and the size of your database, the results will be displayed in the grid.

Notice however the Auto Filter button:

This is a toggle button - click it to toggle between activated (always highlighted, as shown above) and deactivated (normal). When activated the Apply Filter button is disabled and as soon as you enter values in the Filters grid the program automatically retrieves the results and shows them in the results grid - you don't need to click the Apply Filter button. This can be a time-saver but can also result in multiple delays if you have a large database and complex filters, so you have the option to turn Auto Filter on or off.

Filter Templates can be saved and reused over & over again as needed, in a similar way to Layout Templates. Filter templates are also stored in the database and shared amongst all users. The implementation has been designed so that there can be many filter templates; users can select whichever one they want to use for a particular purpose and at a particular time. Filter templates determine the actual load records returned by your search.

Once you've selected the filter field columns you want to use, click the Save button under Filter Templates.

The Save Template window will be displayed. If this is a new template just type in the name you'd like to give it. If you want to modify an existing template, select the Save changes to an existing template radio button and select the existing template from the drop-down list.

Then click OK. The new template is now available for use by all users.

To re-use a saved template select it from the drop-down list under Filter Templates and click the Apply button. The filter fields will be restored, ready for you to enter the actual data values to be used.

To delete an existing template select it from the drop-down list and click the Delete button. You will be prompted to confirm before the template is deleted.

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