Time to dive into the may Filtering enhancements available with a wide range of functions, capabilities and customization options that give you the tools to make the most of your Cloudability experience in ways you may have either requested in the past or did not know our tools were capable of providing today!

Some of the most comprehensive and dynamic feature enhancements this year that will benefit Cloudability users come through the filtering capabilities within Apptio BI - so lets jump in with descriptions, and Demos! If you do not have access to these features - reach out to your dedicated account representative at Apptio - but please know they will be rolling out to you as soon as possible, if they have not already!

Learn more about Filters and more on Apptio BI, here!
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Compound Filtering (Help Center Documentation can be found here)

Compound filtering provides the ability to combine multiple filter conditions using AND and OR operators to create more complex and precise data queries. This empowers you to refine your data selection criteria and customize the filtering conditions to better align with your specific needs. Why is this important? Well, the addition of multiple filters allows you to narrow your filters and add a range of customization not currently available in Cloudability that provides depth and breadth to your visualizations that hones in on your data for viewers.

Filter on Calculated Metrics (See Demo Attached) - Help Center

Filtering on calculated metrics ensures you have complete control over the information displayed, making it easier to focus on specific ranges of data and apply your customized metrics (see our previous article for a demo and additional information in Part 2) to filtering capabilities. Learn more about calculated metrics here.

So, if you have already created a calculated metric, which is essentially a custom metric which is really helpful for things like unit economics or comparing metric(s) over time - or just creating non-standard, more interesting metrics in general. Once this metric is created, you can simply select it as named above in the filters menu to filter on that calculated metric and show only, or exclude, that calculated metric from your results (as one example - but all options are available when it comes to filtering as it would any metric.

Pre- and Post-Aggregation Filters (See Demo Attached) - Help Center
Enhance your data analysis capabilities by setting filters as pre- or post-aggregation or combining both options in a single visualization. 

When you go to the filtering pane in your visualization creation window, this is where you can leverage the type head search for filter values capability. This is very helpful, because many times we don't know how vendors name things. For example, how AWS names a particular resource ID. So when sending filters, we will dynamically populate the possible values that are available in the query. This functionality makes it a lot easier to like not have to spend your time like searching for specific data. Users can filter this by area or region for example, specify contains or does not contain and then select a region type, like South. Values will then populate or not populate that are available in this query. And then I can start filtering that down and remove (or add) additional measures (say, East or West) as well if needed.

In and Not-In Filtering (See Demo Attached) - Help Center
Set filters using the In and Not-In operation types, offering more flexibility in selecting and excluding values for your visualizations.  

This feature is a very helpful asset that allows users of Cloud data sources to get more precise with your data filtering based off specific criteria, which in turn will ultimately increase your productivity by not having to create multiple filter sets. So, with the in and not in operations, we'll have option to include or exclude one or more values in a visualization. 

Typeahead search for Filter Values (See Demo Attached) - Help Center
Save time and improve productivity by using the typeahead search feature to quickly find relevant filter values, streamlining your data exploration process. We have posted about this capability in the past, but want to highlight some of the familiar benefits for Cloud users in particular.

This is a familiar but incredibly helpful addition that will reduce the time and effort required to find inputs while modifying or creating filter values in a visualization by displaying search results as you type in real time when selecting from your selected measures to filter on in the Filters menu at the bottom of your visualization creation window.

Also known as autocomplete or inline search, typeahead search filters text as your type, continuously searching for and sifting through your specific inputs as you type into an input field to help you find filters faster without having to scroll. See the image below for an example, as I type simply "Co" to display Consulting, instead of having to search through every value/output, to then simply click or scroll to the value.

Keep in mind that you can select a single value only when using the equals, not equals, contains, does not contain, starts with, not starts with, ends with, not ends with filter functions, and you can select multiple values when using the in and not in operations (see below). Typeahead search does not currently work on metrics or is null or is not null operators.