Grant asks how to modify a view using Advanced Filters to
filter out tasks with a start time greater than four hours
in the future. I'm spelling out the entire process,
including steps that Grant may already know or may have
already performed, in order to make this tutorial more
useful to other people.
-
Find starting view
Find a view which shows exactly what you want except
for the fact that future tasks are still included
-
Write a precise
description of what you want
MLO uses a "pass filter". It doesn't filter out, you filter in. Don't describe
what you want to exclude, rather you should describe
what you want to keep. Grant wants to exclude tasks that
start more than four hours in the future. That
(probably) means that he wants to keep tasks that
have a start time on or before four hours from now, and
also tasks that do not have a start time
-
Bring up the view
definition
Look at the sidebar on the left side of your screen.
Look at the title at the top. If it's the name of the
view you selected in step one, go to step 3. The title
of the left sidebar will be either the name of some
other view or the word "views. If you see a view name as
the title, click on it and it will switch to "views".
Now, scroll down the sidebar until you find the name of
the view you selected in step one. Click on it. The main
display will switch to show your selected view. Finally
go back up to the sidebar title (should still say
"views" and click on it. The sidebar title should now
show the name of the view you selected.
-
Bring up the advanced filter
The sidebar shows the specifications for your
selected view. The specifications are shown in sections.
The first one is called "general". scan down until you
find a section called "Advanced." In this section, you
will find a checkbox called "Add Advanced". Click it to
check it. The button called "Setup" will brighten up and
become available. Click it to bring up a window called
"setup advanced filtering".
-
Add a rule
Click the blue plus in the menu bar. A new rule
appears: it looks like a checkbox followed by four
control boxes and three icons
-
Translate your requirement statement to a formula
Your formula should make use of field names known to
MLO. Click on the first control box after the check box
for a list of field names. For a definition of any of
the field names, consult the MLO documentation, but many
of them are self explanatory. In this case we want
"StartDateTime". Click on the field you want and then
click into the second box to find out the tests that are
available for this field. Translate the requirement you
wrote in step 2 to a formula using the field names and
tests that you have found. In Grant's case that would be
"StartDateTime on-or-before four-hours-from-now or
StartDateTime does-not-exist" . Now go back and clear
out all of the control boxes so they are blank like when
you started. If necessary, click the red dash (minus
sign) at the end of the line to delete it and the blue
plus to get a new blank line. If the boxes have gone
away leaving a formula in their place, triple click the
formula to turn it back into boxes (i.e. make it
editable), hit the red minus at the end of the line to
delete the line and the blue plus for a new line.
-
Enter your first test
The first test in Grant's formula is "StartDateTime
on-or-before four-hours-from-now". In the first box
after the check, select "StartDateTime". In the second
box, select "on or before". In the third box, type "Now
+ 4h". The conjunction is either And versus Or. In this
case, we want tasks with early start times and also
task with no start times, so the conjunction is "OR" -
passing one test or the other test will do. Select "or"
in the last box.
-
Enter your second test
Click the blue plus at the end of the line to add a
second line. The formula is "StartDateTime
does-not-exist". Enter this in the first two boxes. The
third box is not needed and it will vanish.
-
Save your work
Click the OK button at the bottom of the advanced
filtering window to save your filter. Then, at the
bottom of the left sidebar find a button that says
something about saving or discarding. You want it to say
"save view as". If it doesn't, click the arrow at the
right edge of the button, and select "save view as".
Then click the button, and enter a new view name for
your new view.
Out of scope
If your formula requires parentheses, like
((is-goal and start-date has passed) or (has-star and
due-date is soon))
it gets more complicated. Find or request documentation.
Also, if your starting view already has an advanced
filter you need to make sure that your new test and the
existing tests are set up with the appropriate parentheses
and conjunctionc to get the result you want. That's also out
of scope.
-Dwight
