Filtering in the Assistant

You can ask the Assistant to apply filters to a data set by using words and associated synonyms.

The Assistant can apply filters to categories (such as Product column), geographical strings (such as Country or State), and temporal expressions (such as Month or Year).

When you ask the Assistant to apply a filter to a specific column, you are applying an expression filter.

Note: In Cognos Analytics 12.0.0 and higher versions, the Assistant applies filters after aggregation. In previous Cognos Analytics versions, the Assistant applied filters before any aggregation was applied to the data.

The following are some examples of expression filters:
  • show the top 3 products by sales
  • show sales where month is January
  • show products by sales where inventory > 500
  • show products by sales for California
  • show top <num> <column1> by <column2>
    • Displays the top values from <column1> based on the context of <column2>. For example, show top 5 Sales by Region. If <num> is not specified, a default value of 10 is used.
    • <column1> is an aggregated or non-aggregated measure, while <column2> is a categorical column.
Note: Filtered visualizations include a Filter icon in the chart. Hover over the Filter icon to see the applied filter.
You can use the following filters and modifiers to help you filter:
  • in
  • for
  • if
  • where
  • with
  • including
  • excluding
  • top percentage
  • bottom percentage
  • greater than
  • less than
  • top
  • bottom
Note:
  • If you apply top or bottom filter to a categorical column, you must supply a measure.
  • top and bottom filters are applied to the data after any data aggregations.
  • Measures support greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, equal to, and not equal to type filters.