As the UI changes, so also does the workflow. There are some new filtering features both good and bad. Keep in mind that I’m testing this on a prerelease version, so there are a few kinks to be sorted out yet, but I’ll bet you the’ll get there in time for launch.
Quick filter
On most of the forms the quick filter is available. I’ve written a post on this earlier as well, but in general it is a quick way to find the many different types of data in just one field. The field type is selected in the dropdown. It is mostly defaulted to filter on the Description field in the grid and is a Begins with filter. Notice that you can not use the AX filter annotations here with * and ? wildcards or date filters like “..” and “d”. It doesn’t work.
Grid filter
The grid filter criteria are given for each field in the grid. Just tap the grid header and select the way you want to filter. Wildcard does work.
Microsoft has announced in a training video that they are going to work on this and might be more in tune with the Excel searches. Hopefully with the datatype dropdown which shows unique fields in strings and dates get this drill through feature. Searching on dates is a bit of a hassle, so I would use some of the other filter options.
The only thing that is in place in the CPT8 right now is for lookup fields.
For filtering dates you can use dynamic dates like “01” is translated to the first of the current month this year and “0101” means the first of January this year. The date is transformed automatically and when you open it back up again, it shows you the transformed date. (Bug in the “Between” filter gives just “01” as value)
However you have to state the pattern of search from the date you use. You can not use the “..” syntax. This will have to be determined by selecting the right search parameter.
The SysQueryRangeUtil works in this field, which is great.
Filter menu icon
To the left of most (All I’ve seen) grids there is a filter button. Clicking on this pulls out an interface where you can add fields that are not in the grid. Same function as the grid fields. That means no wildcards here either.
Microsoft also said in the training video that I referred to earlier that they will be extending the features in this dialogue to contain some elements of the advanced filter options described below.
I will put money on the fact that at least a save function will be in here when the product is ready for release.
Advanced filter
The good thing is that the advanced filter dialogue still is available that we know and love from earlier versions is still available. By going to Options in the top menu and clicking Advanced filter/sorting you’ll access this familier AX filter options dialogue.
There are some limitations for now, like that you can not use the short date versions (01..31, so use full dates for now), but it does function like before and you can save your queries like before.
You can also do Joins to other tables like before to make a rich filter criteria.
Click to the left of the table name to add a table reference.
Then click Select to add it and it will be selectable in the range selection.
Summary
It looks like there are some faster ways to handle filters then before. I believe 90% of filtering will be done in the Quick filter and I’m excited to see the filter options from Excel being implemented into the grid filter.
The thing I’m missing is the nice AX filter features that AX users are used to like the date handler “..” to select the search pattern for date filters. I can’t seem to see a way to quickly access a filter that is stored either, but I bet you that that feature will be available once they move more features from the Advanced filter dialogue to the filter button. Hopefully you will be able to call a filter through the URL and store it as a favorite on your desktop. It shouldn’t be too hard to do that and will give GREAT value.
We’re still in preview, so I bet that the small kinks are worked out when the release is finished.
dyntips.com by Fredrik Sætre 