Filter types
Causal lets you filter Variables, Charts, Categories, Scenarios, and Time. Combine as many Filters as you want, within one View.
Create a View by hitting the green Views button in the top left of the spreadsheet to create a view.
The filter rules are applied together, using "and" logic.
Therefore, if you create two rules like "Variable is one of [X]" and "Variable is one of [Y]", you will see no variables at all - no variable can be both X and Y at the same time.
Variable filters
Filter the variables in your model as follows:
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| is none of | filters out the specific variable/s you select |
| is one of | filters for only the specific variable/s you select |
| contains | filters for variable names that contain your searched term |
| has category | filters for only the variables that have the selected category applied |
| does not have category | filters out the variables that have the selected category applied |
Chart filters
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| is none of | filters out the selected visual/s |
| is one of | filters for only the selected visual/s |
Note that if you share a View with a chart filter, the variables in the spreadsheet will still be visible, unless you explicitly filter them out. In this situation, a Dashboard may be more appropriate.
Time filters
The time filter is simple - just enter the time range you'd like to see. Note that this affects both the spreadsheet, as well as the time range shown in any visuals.
Category filters
The category "is one of" filters by Category Item/s within a Category (on all the variables where that category exists), as well as any categories mapped to it.
For example: if Employee is linked to Title which is linked to Department, and your View filters for the Engineering Department, Causal will do the following across the spreadsheet and charts:
- Filter for Engineering on the variables that have the Department category;
- Filter for the Titles that sit within Engineering on any variables that have the Title category;
- Filter for Employees within Engineering (linked via their Title), on any variables that have the Employees category; and
- Filter the aggregates of the above relevant variables for only the Engineering Department
- If you want to show others the unfiltered aggregates within a View, you can do this by creating another variable that aggregates the category away (e.g. create a Monthly Payroll with the Department category aggregated away).
We will not filter the categories that are not effectively linked to the filter category.
Consider the modified version of the example above: if in your data it's possible to have the same Title belonging to different departments, you cannot establish Title -> Department mappings; you could only have Employee -> Title and Employee -> Department. If you then create a view that filters by department, the Employee items will be filtered, but your users still could access all the items of the Title category, e.g. via Editable Tables. This might be not desirable if the names of Title items are sensitive.
As a workaround, for some data sources it is possible to replace Title with synthetic column like Title & Department, which can directly be mapped to Department, thus allowing the filter rules to work.
This will not filter out variables that don't have the Category on them. If you wish to do that, you could combine "Variable has category" and "Category is one of" filters.
If you are viewing a version (for example, on a table), Causal will not be able to filter the aggregates for versions saved prior to 15th Feb 2023, we will just show dashes.
Scenario filters
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| is one of | filters for only the specific scenario/s you select |
When a view with a scenario filter is active, you will only be able to see the selected scenarios.