What are filters?
Filters on your roster help you change which data you view at any one time, whether you're editing or you're reviewing shifts in the past, present or future.
When you click on the Filters link above your roster you will see several options to filter information according to the different fields you have on your roster. For example, you can filter by staff name, job title or employees' hourly rate. You can also create custom filters to have even more options for filtering information. We'll show you how to do this in the last section of this post.
Filters are not just for viewing your roster, they're also helpful for scenarios where you may want to send a message to a select group of staff (see below) or to reduce a report to a specific department.
Getting started using filters
If you're new to filters here are five steps to get started:
- When you click on Filters, you'll see a drop down menu appear with all the different filters available. To apply a filter, type in the field or fields you want to filter by. You'll find that when you start typing auto-complete options appear. This speeds things up for you.
- You can filter with as many different words as you wish by separating them with a comma. If you wish to exclude something from your filtered search, then use the minus sign -. When you need to filter with a number value (e.g. staff hourly rate or the age of a staff member) you can use < or > for less than or greater than, = for equal to and - between two numbers to filter all results within a range, i.e. 28-60.
- After you've entered your filters make sure you click the refresh button at the top or press ENTER.
- If you regularly use the same filters, you can save them as a preset. To save a preset, click on the presets icon in the filters drop down menu (top right) and then give your preset a name. This is also where you'll find all your saved presets. You can have as many saved presets as you need.
- To go back to viewing all your data without filters, or if you wish to start again and apply a new filter, press the x in the top right corner of the filters drop down menu. This will clear out your filters. Findmyshift is set up to always remember the last filter you used and it will keep displaying only this information until you press reset. You'll always know when you have a filter applied because the word Filters will turn orange. When it's blue, like the other menu items, there are no filters applied.
Creating custom filters
You can also create your own custom fields to filter on. As an example, you may want to add a skills column, which would document the skills or work experience that each of your employees have. This could be useful when you're searching for staff to cover a shift.
To create a custom column click on the + sign at the top/right of the staff list on the "Staff" page. It's important to know that you will only see this if you are logged in as an administrator. Type in a name for this column and press enter. You will now see this column added at the end of your existing columns as well as on your staff profiles where you can add information to it. Finally, if you open the Filters option you'll also see the column column ready for filtering.
TIP: Don't forget to clear your filters when you're done!
Example: Send a messages to a group of staff
To send a message to a group of your staff click on "Send a message". From the pop-up, click on the filter icon next to the "Name" heading. From here, you can filter by any information on the staff profiles, including department, job title, age and more.