FilteringFilteringFiltering watch records is a powerful tool. It allows you to filter your watch records based on specific criteria such as manufacturer or size. There are two filtering methods available. Once you have filtered your records, you can print out specific reports that will only contain the records that match your filter.
Watch records can be filtered to create specific sets of records that fit the criteria you set. The filtered records can then be reviewed for editing or printed out using the ‘Reports’ option found on the menu bar when the watch, wristwatch, or movement, input form is open. When you select ‘Reports’, the drop down menu list of choices opens. On this menu list, you will be able to select several reports that can be printed with a ‘Filter’ applied. An example of a filter you might want to apply would be: ‘Elgin Watch Co., Size 18, 17 jewels’. Once the filter is applied, you can select the report to print, type in any ‘Addtional Report Title’ information you want, and then print out the filtered report. Only the watch records that fit your filter criteria will be printed. Filtering can be handy if you wanted to create a ‘For Sale’ report for just one specific type of watch. For example: only 21 jewel watches, or maybe only Hamilton watches. After reading about the different filtering methods available, you should practice using the filter features in order to become familiar with them. The filtering capabilities are quite powerful and take some practice in order to understand the unique features available.
Filtering by Selection allows you to filter records based on a single criteria such as manufacturer. To perform this type of filter perform the following steps.
Step 1: To filter by selection, place the cursor on the field that contains the exact data you want to filter by. Example: if you want to filter your records for only ‘Elgin Watch Co.’ watches, find a watch record that has that manufacturer entered and place the cursor on the manufacturer data field.
Step 2: Right click the mouse and select ‘Records’, ‘Filter by Selection’ on the menu bar. You will notice that now you are able to view only the records that have ‘Elgin Watch Co.’ as the manufacturer. The number of records that fit this filter criteria is shown at the record selectors on the lower left corner of the input form. Once you print your report or view/edit the records, you need to ‘Remove Filter’ to see all your records. After applying the filter, you can select another field to filter by and apply it. Keep applying successive filters, one at a time until you have the records filtered the way you want. Once you remove the filter, you can start another filter.
Advanced Filtering is a complex and powerful tool. You will have to experiment with this method to become proficient.
Step 1: To use the ‘Advanced Filter’, right click the mouse and select ‘Records’, ‘Advanced Filter’ from the menu bar. NOTE: A form opens up with the table field list at the top and a grid on the bottom.
Step 2: Click on the right hand side of the ‘Field’ data field on the grid. A drop down list of available fields will drop down allowing you to choose which field you want. You can select as many fields as you want to use for your filter criteria. On the ‘Criteria’ field, you need to type in the filter criteria text exactly as it is found on the watch records. If you want more than one criteria for the same field, you can type in the additional filter criteria on the ‘or’ data field. If you want a third criteria, enter that text on the data field below the ‘or’ data field. You can define as many different filter criteria as there are data fields (up to 9). Note you cannot have two ‘Fields’ with the same field name. Each ‘Field’ must be uniqe. However you can define multiple ‘Criteria’ for each field. If you want to sort the records in acending or decending order, click on the right hand side of the field labled ‘Sort’.
HINT: When using ‘Advanced Filter’ is is advisable to use only criteria you know the exact wording, spelling or number for. The filter will sort out only records that meet the criteria exactly as you typed.
Step 3: Select ‘Filter’, ‘Apply Filter/Sort’ by using the right mouse button click. The ‘Watch Input Form’ will open and only the watch records that fit your filter criteria exactly will be available to view/edit.
Example: The example below shows what you would need to enter if you wanted to use the ‘Advance Filter’ to filter your records for only size 16 or 18 watches with 21 jewels. Note you would need to add 21 to the criteria field next to each size in order to filter that size watch for only 21 jeweled watches.
