Ignore Field In Search + Match Blank Values in Search Form

[kpcollier]

I've got a search and tabular report datapage that is for working on projects that we have. Each project is assigned a Technician, and I have a Technician field in the search form to let the user filter projects by it. 

I am trying to create two functions for the Technician dropdown field in the search form. First, I want to have a blank value in the dropdown that will let the user 'ignore' the field in search criteria... essentially skipping this field in the filter process and showing all projects regardless of technician value. 

I also want to have another blank value (or something similar with the same workflow) that the user can select, to which they will ONLY see projects where Technician field is blank.

So, essentially, I am looking to use both options in the Advanced tab that you see in the image below: 'Ignore field in search criteria' and 'Match blank values'. 

I was thinking of using criteria to create another Technician field, that can be used as the 'Match blank values' field... but I think it would always be used in the filtering process. I'm not sure how I'd not include this filter if the user chose to ignore the Technician field in search criteria.

Any help is appreciated. 

[Ulensr]

Hi @kpcollier

I might be stating the obvious here or I didn't understand what you meant but couldn't you achieve this with cascading dropdown ?

Suppose you have a table which contains project names and technician identifiers.

If you in your search form add the following

1) A technician identifier as hidden with a default value of blank

This will ensure that the default technician value you search for is blank, which will list all projects.

2) Add a criteria with 2x a cascading dropdown

Criteria 1 has a parent field the Technician identifier (default blank) and you set the option, match all when blank, you filter by technician identifier

 

Also change source to Lookup and custom values and click the button next to it to have Table then Custom 

Under custom value add this

 

Make sure the Value field is a space

 

Criteria 2 has criteria 1 as parent field, and uses technician identifier for filtering but displays projects. Also enable match all when blank

 

This way you get a search form which will list all projects regardless of technician on load like this. In my table tech 1 has project A & B assigned, tech 2 C and project D has no technician value

 

 

When a technician however selects his / her ID, only those projects are listed

  

And when the technician selects 'Unassigned' it lists projects which have no assigned technician identifier

 

Hope this solves your issue

 

 

 

 

[Tubby]

I have a little bit different approach to this on a search form. It is similar to @Ulensr in the sense that it is using Criteria for the field but it instead uses a checkbox that users need to tick in order to search for unassigned records rather than two dropdowns.

First, add two criteria to the original field.

First criteria is a dropdown with the normal lookup values/custom values:


If left blank > Ignore field.

2nd criteria change the comparison type to "Is Blank" and it should automatically change the form element to checkbox. Change the label to let users know it is for unassigned records.


Lastly, create a Rule that when Criteria 1 is not blank, disable Criteria 2 to make sure users can't tick the box and select a technician, or in my case role, at the same time.


Hope this helps as well.