Filtering Activities

Filters are a tool for reducing the number of activities displayed in the project without deleting them or otherwise removing them. Activities that have been filtered out will still be used for all calculations and reports. Filters can be setup by selecting Filters from the Tools menu. This window consists of two sections. The lower section shows which filters are currently defined for the project, and the upper section shows which filters are currently applied. A filter must first be defined before it can be applied to the project. Filters can also be imported from another project by clicking the Import button, and selecting the Phoenix Project Manager project file.

Creating a New Filter

Filters Create.png

Clicking the New Filter button in the Available Filters section of the filter window will open up the Create/Modify Filter Filter dialog. Then enter a name for the new filter and select either Matches All if you need the filter to match all criteria specified to be considered a match or Matches Any to make the filter consider an activity that matches any one of the criteria a match for your new filter. After criteria have been setup for your new filter, click OK to save the filter to your Available Filters.

Setting up Criteria

While all your criteria can be specified in different filters, it may make more sense to setup multiple criteria in a single filter so Filter Actions are more clear when applying multiple filters in complex filter situations in large projects. To create criteria for a filter, click the Add New button, which will create a single new criterion. Criteria consist of a target field, comparison type, and one to two parameters. These attributes must be specified in order.

  1. First, select from the following available target fields:
    • Activity ID
    • Description
    • Calendar
    • Original Duration
    • Free Float
    • Total Float
    • Actual Dates
    • Actual Start
    • Actual Finish
    • Early Dates
    • Early Start
    • Early Finish
    • Late Dates
    • Late Start
    • Late Finish
    • Estimated Dates
    • Estimated Start
    • Estimated Finish
    • Any Assigned Activity Codes
  2. Then select the type of comparison you want to make on the target field. These will vary based on the selected target field.
  3. Once a comparison type has been selected, one or two parameters will be shown to be used with the comparison type on the target field.
  4. Once the parameters have been specified, click Add New to specify additional criteria and repeat the process, or OK to add the filter to your list of Available Filters.

Criteria can be removed from a filter by selecting the row with the criteria, and clicking Remove.

Setting up a Filter Chain

Once a Filter has been defined, it can be applied to the project by selecting it in the list of Available Filters, and clicking the Add To Active Filters button. This will add it to the list of Active Filters in the lower section of the filters window. If more than one filter is applied to the schedule, the filters can be ordered using the Move Up and Move Down buttons, so the filter at the top of the list is applied first, and the remaining filters are applied in descending order.

If multiple filters are applied, there are two options for every filter after the first. The Filter From option specifies whether this filter is applied to a list of all activities in the project, or just the results of the last filter. The Action option specifies which of the following actions the filter will perform:

  • Inclusive: This filter will add its results to the results from the last filter. The first filter in a filter chain always uses this behaviour. Applying this action to the results filtered from the last filter will result in the same list of activities since no activities will be matched that aren't already in the resulting list of activities.
  • Exclusive: This filter will remove matching activities from the results of the last filter. There is no difference between applying this action to All Activities or Last Filter since it can only remove activities that are already in the results from the last filter.
  • Invert: Any activities that match this filter will be removed from the results from the last filter, and all other additional activities that match that weren't previously in the results from the last filter will be added to the list of remaining activities for the final result of this filter. If this action is applied to the results from the last filter, it has the same effect as an Exclusive filter, since only activities from the last filter's results will be matched in this filter.

Once all of the filters have been applied in order, a final resulting list of activities is created. You must select whether you would like those activities to be shown or hidden. If you select Show, the activities will be shown, and all other activities will be hidden. If you select Hide, they will be hidden, and all other activities will be shown. To remove a single filter from the list of Active Filters, select the filter and click the Delete Filter button. To remove all Active Filters, click the Clear Filters button.