.Stat Suite documentation

Filters

Table of Content

Version history:
Selectable empty parent in hierarchical filters and automated selected parents since December 20, 2023 Release .Stat Suite JS yay
Facets values count numbers also count values with no data since December 20, 2023 Release .Stat Suite JS yay
Change display of the ‘Applied filters’ area with April 20, 2023 Release .Stat Suite JS unicorn
Bulk selection option is replaced by the ‘advanced selection popup’ feature since April 20, 2023 Release .Stat Suite JS unicorn
Improved hierarchical filters with April 20, 2023 Release .Stat Suite JS unicorn
Display of code descriptions introduced in March 4, 2022 Release .Stat Suite JS 13.0.0
Checkboxes added to filter items since October 5, 2021 Release .Stat Suite JS 10.0.0
keyboard selection options introduced in (January 21, 2021 Release .Stat Suite JS 7.0.0)

General note: All content related to the filter area is localised. For more information, go to the general documentation about Languages.


Filter area

The left-hand side (right-hand in rtl mode) of the visualisation page shows a set of dimension filters that allow dynamically filtering the dimension values to be displayed in the preview table or chart, to be extracted through the download feature ‘Filtered data in tabular text (CSV)’ or to be applied in the auto-generated data query in ‘Developer API’ menu.

The current filters selection is summarised in the ‘Applied filters’ area, and displayed above the table/chart data representation.

A filter is created for each of the dimensions of the currently displayed dataflow based on data availability (see documentation), except if the dimension contains only one possible item or if it is configured to be hidden. In addition, the dimensions ‘Frequency’ and ‘Time Period’, when available, are automatically combined into a common ‘Frequency & Time Period’ filter (see the related documentation).

The order of the filters respects the order of the dimensions as defined in the underlying data structure definition (DSD), except the ‘Frequency & Time Period’ filter panel, which is displayed second after the ‘Applied filters’ panel.

The number of currently selected items against the number of available items (selected/available) is displayed next to each filter name.

Multi selection filters

If the user has made selection(s) in the previous search result page, if a default selection is applied from an SDMX annotation (see documentation), or if the URL contains dimension selections, then these selections are automatically pre-applied in the filters.

Whenever there is no filter item selection, then it is indicated in the filter title by “all”, e.g. "all/39". When all filter items are selected, the number of selected items is displayed instead "39/39". The numbers also include facets values with no data (greyed out).
Because making no selections and complete selections return the same data, the usage of “all” should help to clarify this effect, while there remains a visual distinction for the fact that a saved selection is static while the items concerned by no selection may evolve over time. Indeed, as a generic behavior, when no element of a filter is selected, then it acts as if all items were selected. However, if a corresponding query is saved (e.g. bookmarked page, saved API query or shared dynamic table/chart), then the results may defer later in case the available dimension items evolve.
Therefore, while a full selection would always correspond to 39 items, for no filter selection the number of actually considered dimension items might increase, e.g. 40, 41 etc.


Multi-selection filters

All filters are standardised multi-selection filters, except the ‘Frequency & Time Period’ filter. It means that the user can select multiple items per filter.

Multi selection filters

Each item of a filter is displayed with a checkbox on the left side in the filter list:

  • when the item is not selected, the checkbox is empty;
  • when the item is not selected and the mouse hovers it, the checkbox stays empty and the background is blue;
  • when the item is selected, the checkbox is changed into a tick mark.

de filter checkbox

When a filter contains 8 items or more, then:

  • a vertical scrollbar is added to the filter
  • a local search (spotlight feature) box is displayed,
  • an advanced selection button is displayed next to the local search box, which gives access to an advanced selection popup. A localised tooltip with the text “Use advanced selection modes” is displayed on mouse-over.

Advanced selection button

Any filter selection change will automatically trigger the update of the data view (table/chart/API query), and these changes will also be reflected in the ‘Applied filters’ panel.

Hierarchical content

In case of a hierarchy in the items, they are shown as ‘a tree’, which means that the filter will display all the items with indentations according to the item level in the tree. A blue arrow next to an item indicates that this item is a parent of child item(s). Clicking this blue arrow switches its up/down direction and the related child items will respectively be hidden or become visible. By default, the tree is fully expanded so that all the items of all tree levels are visible (through scrolling if needed).

Hierarchical contents

If for a parent (at any level) there are no data available (according to the Actual ContentConstraint related to the Dataflow), then the parent item is marked in light grey, but it can still be selectable with certain conditions: see below. Still, the user can navigate to the children.

Hierarchical contents

For more information on how advanced hierarchies can be applied (using the SDMX Hierarchical Codelist), see Advanced hierarchies.

Selectable empty parent in hierarchical filters

By default, if a parent at any level of a hierarchical codelist has no data available (according to the SDMX Actual ContentConstraint related to the Dataflow), then the parent item is marked in light grey and is not selectable. Then, when the user starts filtering, or according to a default selection, the following rules apply:

  • When a (grand-)child of a parent item without data has data and is selected, then the user can (de)select the parent item (thus it is shown/hidden in the table view together with the (grand)child);
  • When none of the (grand-)children of a parent item has data and is selected, then the parent item remains deselected, and the user cannot (de)select the parent item (avoiding ending up with an empty table view).

Selecting a parent with empty data will result in adding the parent item in the ‘Applied filters’ area, however it is impossible to deselect an empty parent without deselecting its child(ren) first.

Selectable empty parent

These behaviors also apply to the relevant advanced selection modes of the ‘Advanced selection popup’

Automated selected parents

When defined by the SDMX ALWAYS_DISPLAY_PARENTS annotation, specific parent level(s) can be always automatically selected whenever a child with data is selected.

Example:
For a dataflow with a hierarchical dimension named “ANALYTICAL_CATEGORIES”, the data owner has defined the following rule of automated selection: ANALYTICAL_CATEGORIES=LEVEL1+LEVEL2+LEVEL3+LEVEL4.
Whenever the end-user will select in the filter a child of any of these levels, then automatically all the levels above will be selected, whatever there is data or not for those parents.
It will not be possible to deselect those parents unless the child is deselected first.
The advanced selection modes also take this auto-selection feature into account.

Automated selected parent

Display of code descriptions

The localised descriptions of codes defined in a codelist of a dimension are displayed on mouse-over on the related filter items using a tooltip. These items are underlined with dots in order to inform the user of the availability of the description.

Code descriptions

Advanced selection popup

Clicking the advanced selection modes button triggers the display of an advanced selection popup. It provides more advanced selection options especially for a longer or hierarchical list and refreshes the data view only once the new selection is validated by the user.
The popup always provides a local search (spotlight feature) box.

Clicking the Selection mode button located next to the local search box opens a drawer with tiles for the different modes of selection:

  • Single item
  • Item and all items directly below
  • Whole branch
  • All items at the same level
  • All items

Once the user clicked one of the tiles, the drawer closes again upwards. All following filter selections apply the chosen selection mode.

Hierarchical contents

Additional features in the popup propose to Expand all items or to Collapse all items keeping only the root item(s) when the items are hierarchical.
To apply the selection in the Filters area and refresh the data view, it is necessary to click on the Apply button, which closes the advanced selection popup.

Note that, for all advanced selection modes, when relevant and aligned with the rules described here, empty parents of child(ren) with data in a hierarchical filter can be (de)selected.

Selectable empty parent in advanced mode

Data availability

In filters with hierarchical dimensions, parent values, for which no data exist, are still shown but marked specifically. For more information, see Data availability.

The local search (spotlight feature) helps to find specific items.

Typing some characters in the local search box dynamically reduces the displayed items to the ones containing the given set of characters. If the local search term has no hit in any item then the list is empty.

Local search example

Whenever the content of the local search box is changed, the items in hierarchical lists are fully expanded. When a local search terms has a hit in a child item, then all its above parent items will automatically be displayed, even if the search term was not found in these parent items.

Local search example with hierarchy

Keyboard selection options

The keyboard’s Ctrl and Shift keys, as well as holding mouse click, can be used in the filters and in the advanced selection popup to ease multiple selections.

  • Using the Shift key:
    If you first press Shift and select an item of a list, then selecting another item while still holding Shift will result in selecting all intermediate items (between those 2 selections) of the list. The same principle will apply in de-selection mode. As long as the ctrl key is held, the data table is not updated.
  • Using the Ctrl key:
    If you first press Ctrl and select an item of a list, then selecting another item while still holding Ctrl will result in selecting this second item too. You can keep on selecting new items as long as Ctrl is held.
    As long as the ctrl key is held, the data table is not updated.
    Remark: The combination of ctrl and shift keys is not possible.
  • Holding mouse click:
    If you click on one item and hold the mouse button without releasing it, then moving the mouse cursor down/up to another item of the same list will select both items and all intermediate ones.
    As long as the mouse button is held, the data table is not updated.

Note that these keyboard selection options are not compatible with the web content accessibility support.


Frequency and Time period filter

See here for details.


Applied filters panel

See here