Plan requirement
| Subscription | Suite Professional or higher, Explore Professional or higher |
| Access | Agent |
Report filters define the number; dashboard filters let readers explore. Putting a definition in the wrong one causes lasting confusion.
The distinction
A report filter is part of what the number means: excluding spam, excluding a test brand. It should not be changeable by a reader.
A dashboard filter is a question the reader is allowed to ask: which team, which month.
What belongs in the report
- Excluding spam and suspended tickets.
- Excluding internal or test data.
- Anything the definition depends on.
If a reader can switch it off, they can produce a number that contradicts the official one and looks equally official.
Putting it in the report is not enough on its own. A dashboard filter overrides the report's filter on the same attribute, so the report filter sets the default rather than sealing the number. The pairing that holds is both halves: filter it in the report, and leave that attribute out of the dashboard's filter bar. Excluding spam in the report while offering the reader a spam filter is the same as not excluding it.
What belongs on the dashboard
- Date range.
- Group or team.
- Brand, where you have several.
The default is what a reader gets before touching anything
Set them to the view the dashboard is designed around, not to "all time" or "everything". A default nobody chose is still the version almost everybody reads.
The limit that only applies to live dashboards
On a live dashboard, an applied filter takes at most 5 attribute values. Ordinary dashboards are not capped that way, so a filter that works everywhere else runs out of room the moment the same design is put on a live one.
Check this before you design around a filter listing eight groups.
Apply filters consistently
A filter should affect every report on the tab, or it should be obvious which ones it does not touch. Partial application is where two numbers on the same screen stop being comparable.
Say what is filtered out
On the dashboard itself. "Excludes spam and internal tickets" is one line and it settles the question before somebody asks it in a meeting.
Watch for combinations with no data
A team and a period with three tickets produces percentages that look dramatic. Where that is likely, note the minimum volume needed for the numbers to mean anything.
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