Predefined filters

Predefined filters can be configured in your questionnaires together with the formulas. In this way, the formulas will only take the data that meets the criteria of such predefined filters. Predefined filters are ideal if you want to filter by e.g. demographics, teams or dates for your formula calculations.

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This guide will teach you:

1. What are predefined filters
2. How to create
3. How to use
4. Common use cases 
   • Filter by demographics
   • Filter by teams/companies
   • Filter by date

1. What are predefined filters

Predefined filters are the filters you can configured alongside the formulas in your questionnaire so that the formulas will take into account the correct data for calculation and populate the results in your PDF reports.

Why use predefined filters?

If you want to use the same formula for different sets of data, you can create the formula once and apply it to multiple predefined filters. It’s easier to manage and use the formulas and variables in your report and avoid setup mistakes.

For example, you want to calculate the average score of a response across all respondents, group by their location, you will create the following:

• 1 formula: *|q1_field1_response|*
• 3 predefined filters: 
  • US: All respondents that says they are from the US
  • EMEA: All respondents that says they are from EMEA
  • Asia: All respondents that says they are from Asia

In the PDF report, you will be able to use these predefined filters alongside your formula and populate the following results:

• Average field 1 response score in US
• Average field 1 response score in EMEA
• Average field 1 response score in Asian

Look at the following step-by-step guide with screenshots to understand the setup.

2. How to create

In your questionnaire, go to Extra Options tab.

In the Extra Options tab, scroll down to the Custom Scoring section and select Predefined filters.

In the Predefined filters page, click +Create filter. 

When creating a new filter, the following fields are required: 

• Name
• Handle: Handles are variables that are inserted into your formula variables. You can think of it as a predefined filters ID for the formulas to look for the correct filter(s) and get the right data for the calculation. Once the handle is configured and used with the formulas in the reports, be careful not to change the handles as it will impact the results in your report.
• Description
• Select the filter(s)

3. How to use

Make sure you have configured the formulas, for example:

Go back to Predefined filters and check your filters:

After adding all needed predefined filters, go to the Report Builder associated with this questionnaire and insert variables. You will see a variable menu list:

In this example, I want to insert the formula of average communication skills with the predefined filters that include only people from the marketing team:

Once selected, it will show up in your report as follows. The handles are inserted in between the formula variables and applied to the formulas for calculation.

4. Common use cases of predefined filters

4.1 Filter by demographics

If you questionnaire has questions about certain demographics, such as gender, age, location etc. and you want to group certain dataset for formula calculation, you can create predefined filters.

4.2 Filter by teams/companies

If you manage several teams or have multiple companies as customers and you want like to see an overview of results per team / per company, you can create the predefined filters. Such as:

4.3 Filter by date

You can create different filters with Custom Date to filter responses data submitted in Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 2024 for example. In this way, you can display the calculation results in your report in your goal is to understand the changes overtime.

This can be used when creating a 360 report to evaluate a person's performance over time. 

Check our article How to create an Individual vs Group Report on how to create a 360 report.

You can also filter by dates in the following ways if you want to shows results from recent responses

• Last 24 hours
• Last week
• Last month
• Last year

What's next?

• Double check the formulas you have create and ensure seamless calculation in your report with the predefined filters.
• Check out Aggregate Report Types Explained to understand which type of report meets your needs and set up relevant predefined filters.
• Create Individual vs. Group Reports combined with predefined filters to easier management and formula calculation and provide insights from the responses.