Clarity

Is it possible to clear the filters on a destination portlet when a new link is clicked on the source portlet?   For example, I have a portlet page with a grid portlet showing total number of status reports by portfolio.  When you click the number of status reports, it will display the list of projects in another portlet (destination portlet) on the page so you can see the projects that make up the total number of status reports for that portfolio.  The destination portlet, showing the list of projects, has filters on it.  You can filter the list showing only projects with an overall status of Green.  The problem is that if you make a new selection in the source portlet, the filter remains in the destination portlet.  Would like to know if there is a way to clear the filters in the destination portlet when you click another the link in the source portlet. 

Not exactly user-friendly to ask users to always click "Clear" on the destination portlet when they make a new selection on the source portlet.

Normal portlet functionality is to "remember" the last used filters on it - this is by design and a good usability thing (since when a user returns to a portlet, its unfriendly to make then enter previous filter values again).

So I think that its your "design" that has thrown up this unwelcome feature - because your "called portlet" has its own filters available ; usually whenever I link from one portlet to another portlet (page) I try to keep all the "parameters" in the link itself ; so that that the called-portlet does not have any parameters (filters) of its own. Obviously I'm not sure whether this is feasible in your use-case though.

The list in the destination portlet is large, in some cases, and required additional filters that wouldn't be available in the source portlet links to be used as filters.  This is why we added filters to the destination portlet. 

^ yeah I understand - that why I said "not sure whether this is feasible in your use-case"

--

Could your "source portlet" perhaps show counts for GREEN status projects , AMBER status projects, RED status projects separately ; enabling the links on each of those separate counts (as well as the 'portfolio') and you then have a way of passing the required "filter" to the "destination portlet".

i.e.

user clicks on the portfolio -> destination shows all projects for the portfolio

user clicks on the GREEN count on the portfolio -> destination shows all GREEN projects for the portfolio

(etc)

(and remove the filters from the destination portlet entirely)

--

Still not sure whether this is feasible in your use-case though - its those "additional filters" that would be the problem with what I'm suggesting

I'm already doing this but they wanted a totals column.  So when you click totals, you get all of the statuses, (red, yellow, green) and they may want to filter inside the destination portlet when they click totals.  They also have other filters I can't use in the source portlet.  such as filtering on the Project Manager or a custom attribute we have for Roadmap Program.  The source portlet is grouped by portfolio, then it has the statuses as columns (red yellow green) and the metric being total # of projects.  So they can click Red total and just see projects with red statuses but then they may want to filter that destination portlet by PM or Program.  Hope that makes sense. 

Yeah it does

Clicking on individual red/yellow/green works like I suggest, but agreed, drilling into "by project manager" doesn't really work.

I'd display project manager on the destination portlet and perhaps sort by that, but any "filtering" that you make available will always "remember" the previous value.

Whenever we build something in Clarity/PPM we are always at a bit of a compromise about how the product works ; I am continually having to remind my stakeholders that we are NOT dealing with a development technology we are dealing with a configurable product and there is always as much compromise with that as there is good stuff that the product just does for us auto-magically.

Thanks.  This is what I keep trying to remind everyone.  It has limitations like any other tool but they always try to make it do things it can't do. 

David, I really like your statement:

"Whenever we build something in Clarity/PPM we are always at a bit of a compromise about how the product works ; I am continually having to remind my stakeholders that we are NOT dealing with a development technology we are dealing with a configurable product and there is always as much compromise with that as there is good stuff that the product just does for us auto-magically."

I may be presenting at CA World (awaiting both spousal and corporate permission), mind if I use your statement.

paraphrased of course.

By all means.

Michael Thibault wrote:

 

paraphrased of course.

to "because of reasons" perhaps?

Hi AngieTarabella - Did Dave_3.0's response help answer your question? If so please mark as Correct Answer. Thanks!

No, it didn't because I'm already doing what he suggested and some of the fields they want to filter the destination portlet on are not linkable in the source portlet.