Filter Portlets : Refresh when adding a new field

[Anon Anon]

I have a filter portlet that I use to control a the display of a consistent set of data across multiple "dashboards". It all works well and I am happy with it (neat functionality IMHO).

 

I am thinking of using my existing portlet to control some new functionality that I am building - the new functionality has some additional requirements that mean I want some additional filter fields.

 

So I just add additional fields into the existing filter portlet, and when I am still using that filter portlet against the "old" dashboards, then the new fields are not mapped in the page and so just don't appear on the "old" dashboard (all good so far).

 

And when I use the old filter-portlet against my new dashboard it all works OK too using the existing filter-sets (saved by the user against the old dashboards).

 

However... if I save a new format filter-set (i.e. populate one of my new filter fields and save that criteria), it starts to go "funny"... what happens is that when I move from a "new filter-set" to an "old filter-set" then the additional (new) field is carried over to the "old-filter set" (to which it does not apply).

 

I understand why this is happening and what the user can do about it  (recreate their saved-filters), I was just wondering if anyone knew of a quick application-friendly way to resolve this without having to get users to re-create all their saved filters or without me having to do this on the back-end (thru supported/unsupported means).

 

 

[System]

Hi All - Any ideas here for Dave? Thanks! Chris

DAVID MORTON wrote:

 

I have a filter portlet that I use to control a the display of a consistent set of data across multiple "dashboards". It all works well and I am happy with it (neat functionality IMHO).

 

I am thinking of using my existing portlet to control some new functionality that I am building - the new functionality has some additional requirements that mean I want some additional filter fields.

 

So I just add additional fields into the existing filter portlet, and when I am still using that filter portlet against the "old" dashboards, then the new fields are not mapped in the page and so just don't appear on the "old" dashboard (all good so far).

 

And when I use the old filter-portlet against my new dashboard it all works OK too using the existing filter-sets (saved by the user against the old dashboards).

 

However... if I save a new format filter-set (i.e. populate one of my new filter fields and save that criteria), it starts to go "funny"... what happens is that when I move from a "new filter-set" to an "old filter-set" then the additional (new) field is carried over to the "old-filter set" (to which it does not apply).

 

I understand why this is happening and what the user can do about it  (recreate their saved-filters), I was just wondering if anyone knew of a quick application-friendly way to resolve this without having to get users to re-create all their saved filters or without me having to do this on the back-end (thru supported/unsupported means).

 

 

[Anon Anon]

Its actually a worse problem than I first realised, so not sure I am going to even try to fix it

 

--

 

It seems that when you save a filter-set on a filter-portlet that is used (persisted) across a number of different pages (or tabs) (where different fields in the filter-portlet are used on different pages) then there is the potential to confuse the user.

 

What happens is that filter fields that you have used on one page are saved alongside saved filter-sets that you may save on another page (where the field is not used).  This is confusing because the user may think that they have saved a filter with (eg) 2 criteria, but in fact they have also saved extra criteria alongside it.

 

I noticed that the set of fields that gets saved as part of the filter-set are only the ones that have been used in that login session, so the problem that I though I had originally (where I was getting problems with filters saved in older versions of the filter-portlet) is actually reproducible with the new filter-portlet on its own.  So its very easy to create a saved filter that does not contain all the fields used on a particular page - this gets confusing when you try to use that filter-set on a page with more fields (as per my original problem).

 

--

 

Anyway, not sure I've explained that all particularly clearly - in any case the problem I'm describing does not happen in normal portlets (the app seems to clear out all filter-fields when it picks up a saved-filter) so only in filter-portlets - and furthermore only when the filter-portlet is used persistently across a number of pages with different sets of mapped filter-fields on those pages.

 

Hmmm.

[navzjoshi00]

Thanks for sharing this, Dave

 

NJ

[Anon Anon]

Yeah, shame it don't work right though.

[navzjoshi00]

Hmm