Thx. The first link appears to be something that I can do. I will have to arrange to get a few more groups created (which should not be a problem).
Based on my testing so far it appears that the actual name of the group defined in SMC must be the value of a variable in my data set. At least that is how I got it working. I was able to add a new field in Information Map Studio to create a value that matches the groups (that already exist of will exist). It would be great if you could confirm that.
And the link also answered another question for me. I could not see how to force the filter in the Info Map and the KB article clarified that it is a Map level and not Filter level property. Seems to me that one should be able to specify that at the filter level. But now that I know where it is set, I guess I am OK.
And last, this blog posting answered the one other issue - hiding the filter choices:
http://sas-bi.blogspot.com/2010/07/hide-filters-hide-filters-web-report.html