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sas_it
Quartz | Level 8
I require clear filter as it appears in drop down in the list of prompt container . How to do that? Is it possible to show all the filters also or any default option.
1 REPLY 1
Stu_SAS
SAS Employee

There are a few ways to achieve this.

 

Viya 2020.1.5 and Newer

There is an option available allowing you to do this right from the list table.

Stu_SAS_1-1636468830435.png

 

This places a "Select all" link within the list prompt.

 

Stu_SAS_3-1636468974833.png

You can select everything to do an inverse filter where you want to select everything except for a few items, then clear it when you are done.

 

Stu_SAS_2-1636468905952.png

 

Visual Analytics 8.5/7.5

Right-click the list and select "Clear selection" or "Select all."

 

Stu_SAS_4-1636469344479.png

 

If you want to display all the filters by default, the most optimal way is to avoid placing list filters in prompt containers and keeping all default values as clear to the user as possible. Consider the following two design options:

 

Side prompts

Visual Analytics 7.5/8.5 and newer allow you to place prompts on the side of the page. This is ideal for list controls so that users can always see what is available. Personally, this is my favorite way to display filters since it makes good use of widescreen monitors and prevents graphs from getting squashed or compressed.

 

To add side prompts:

  1. Click the "Page" tab to enable Page options
  2. Go to the Options pane on the right and scroll to "Page controls"
  3. Select the left or right side of the page

You can now drag and drop lists directly to the prompt area.

 

side-filters.gif

 

Scrolling Container

Side prompts have limited space, and you might find your lists getting too compressed to use if you have a lot of them to show. A second option is to drag a scrolling container to the left side of your page. From there, you can add as many controls as you'd like and the container will automatically scroll.

 

scrolling-container.gif

 

If you turn on Automatic Actions, all of your filters will apply just like page prompts.

Stu_SAS_5-1636470366332.png

 

If you want more complex interactions, you'll need to add manual interactions between each object.

 

Quick tip: If you need to add a lot of manual interactions from many filters, you can easily do it with the following trick:

1. Select your last filter

2. Add actions to all objects on the page

3. Select your first filter

4. Sequentially add actions to each subsequent filter until you get to the last filter, or have all filters point to the last filter

 

This will indirectly create all interactions you need on the page.

 

interactions.gif

 

Default Values and the User Experience

Keep any values you want to set as default as clear as possible for users. Make sure that they can see it right when they enter the page. If you have a lot of default values that need to be set and they can't be made obvious, it is a good idea to add text at the top of the page that states what the default values are.

 

If you are interested in some more tips around filter and prompt design, check out my paper Make Beautiful Vertically Scrolling Dashboards in SAS Visual Analytics.

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Tips for filtering data sources in SAS Visual Analytics

See how to use one filter for multiple data sources by mapping your data from SAS’ Alexandria McCall.

Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.

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