Back-end & front-end filters

Modified on Thu, 12 Dec at 3:40 PM

Concept of creating back-end and front-end filters (filters on cube/dataset data and object data)

You can filter either on back-end data (cube/dataset data) or front-end data (object data). Back-end filters apply filter on cube/dataset data, while front-end filters apply filter on front-end (for example, cross-tab) data.

Note:

In cube/dataset data filter (back-end filter), the system will display all dimensions available in the cube/dataset and will not display any measures. Back-end filter on measure or custom measure columns are not available.

In object data filter (front-end filter), the system will display all columns (dimensions, measures, and custom measures) available in front-end object (for example, cross-tab). It will not display any other columns available in the cube/dataset except the columns that are used in front-end objects, e.g. in a cross-tab.

Some filters and their types are displayed in the below table.

Name of the Filter	Back-end	Front-end
Page Filter	Yes
Retrieval Parameters	Yes
Time Series Filters	Yes
Filters, advanced filters (on Dimension, Measures, UDDC )	Yes(If 'Cube/dataset data' option is selected)	Yes(If 'Object data' option is selected)

Example 1 – Applying back-end filter and front-end filter

The below sales cross-tab shows product category wise gross sales for different states.

SALES CROSS-TAB

Applying back-end filter:

The below sales cross-tab shows the data after applying the back-end filter – Year = 2014.

SALES CROSS TAB AFTER APPLYING THE BACK-END FILTER ON YEAR

Here, though the 'Year' is not present in the cross-tab, you can filter it through the cube/dataset data. So only the records of 2014 will be loaded to the cross-tabs.

Applying front-end filter:

The below cross-tab shows the data after applying the front-end filter – “State = Florida and Ohio”.

SALES CROSS TAB AFTER APPLYING THE FRONT-END FILTER ON STATE

In this example, you can not apply the front-end filter on 'Year' since the column is not present in the cross-tab. Front-end filters are always applied on the columns used in front-end object, e.g. Product Category, State and Gross sales columns in this cross-tab. In back-end filter, the data will be fetched from the cube/dataset after applying the filter (e.g. filter on 'Year') and loaded to the cross-tab, and it minimizes records in the front-end. 'Year') and loaded to the cross-tab, and it minimizes records in the front-end.

Note: This article is based on Smarten Version 5.X. This may or may not be relevant to the Smarten version you may be using

back end filters front end filters Page Filter retrieval parameters time series filters crosstab Tabular Visualizations Geomap Datasets