Reports > Filtering Tips

Most reports, manager screens and export functions have filters to allow you to refine your searches and reports with filters. The filters are pretty self-explanatory, but here are some tips:

How the Filters Work

All RetailEdge filters work as a search from the first letter in the search criteria. So if you set a filter for description = SH RetailEdge will find items with descriptions starting with SH (e.g., Shirt Black Medium, Shoe Running, etc.).

All text filter operators (i.e., description, SKU, UPC1, UPC2, Custom User Fields, etc.) are filtered similarly.

Filters on separate criteria are AND filters. For instance, if you are looking for customers from Vermont AND Last Name "Smith", you add both a “STATE = VT” filter and a “LAST NAME = SMITH” filter to the filter list. RetailEdge will find all customers from VT and Last Name Smith.

Filters on similar criteria are OR filters. So if you are looking for customers in either Vermont OR California, you can add both a “STATE = VT” filter and a “STATE = CA” filter to the filter list. RetailEdge will find all customers from either VT or CA.

Filter Prefixes

You can prefix a filter with AND, OR and NOT to give you more flexibility with your filters. If you want to have a filter exclude a particular city you might set a filter “STATE = CA” and City "NOT San Diego". If you don't see the result you are expecting try using an AND or OR in the criteria. For instance, in the example above, if you add another NOT filter for City (e.g., NOT Carlsbad) you will get everyone in the State of CA. So you would want to change your criteria to AND NOT Carlsbad. This will show you the list of Customers, that are not in San Diego and Not in Carlsbad.

Filter Wild-cards

The percent (%) sign. The percent sign tells RetailEdge to do interior pattern match. If you want to have RetailEdge search for SHIRT anywhere in the description you would set a filter for Description = %SHIRT (the trailing % is already there by default).

Underscore (_) character. Another filter wildcard you might want to use is the _ character. This allows you to search for a particular letter in a particular location in the search criteria. This can be useful (and emphasizes the importance of consistency in creating items) if you have created items where the 5th and 6th character in the SKU are the year. So you could use a filter for SKU = _ _ _ _ 04 to search on inventory from 2004 if you build your SKUs that way.

You can use these in any combination you want. The wild-cards also work for text fields on the find screens as well, although you don't need them here since we have the interior match checkbox option.