1. Filtering methods
In this video, we'll talk about the many ways Filtering is done in Sigma workbooks, and how Page Controls like date selectors, sliders and more can give your consumers a customizable experience.
To demonstrate how filters work in Sigma, we'll use the example of filtering a table of call data by a particular customer ID and date range.
This page has a table listing all customer calls.
To filter this table by a particular customer ID, we can configure a filter in the upper right corner using the filter icon.
We can add additional filter criteria with the plus symbol, and turn individual filters on and off with the toggle button.
Exiting the filter menu, the filter icon will have a number corresponding to the number of filters applied to the table.
But what if we want to make it clearer to end users that they can interact with this filter? Or what if they want to see more clearly what filter values are being applied to the table? Converting the table filter to a page control is a great solution.
Using the three dots next to the filter, we can choose Convert to Page Control. This places a filter control on the page, separate from the table. As we make selections within the filter, the table continues to update, and now we can clearly see which selections have been chosen.
Double-clicking on the page control's prompt allows us to provide more user-friendly text.
In the control's settings tab, we have many other options for how this control could function; we can allow multiple selections, toggle it to be an exclusionary filter, and importantly, we can make this control required.
Making a page control required prevents data from being loaded until a selection is made. This is great for efficiency, as it prevents Sigma from querying all the table's data unnecessarily.
Finally, note that each control has a Control ID value, which is a unique identifier for that control. We'll learn more about this in a later section.
Exploring the Controls button at the bottom of the page, we see that Sigma can configure many different types of controls.
In addition to converting existing filters to page controls, you can also create them from the add an element bar by clicking Controls
Let's see what's different when we create a control from scratch vs creating from an existing field.
From the Add an Element bar, let's select a date range filter to show calls within the last 2 years only.
It's always a best practice to give controls a unique ID so let's do that first. We can change the end user displaying title to be something a bit more user friendly by double-clicking the title here. We'll call this Calls Received Filter.
In the Settings tab, we'll make this control required, and in Targets, we'll point it to the Call Received column of the CALL LOGS table to tell Sigma which field we want this filter to apply to.
Sigma allows for date filtering based on specific range like January 1 to January 30 or a relative range like last 3 weeks or next quarter.
It's generally a good idea to rearrange elements on the page - let's drag the controls next to each other on the page.
There's lots of options with controls and now that we've created 2 different types, it's your turn to give it a shot!
2. Let's practice!