Errors when filtering on multiple strings

[SandSlinky]

Hello,

Forgive me, I am very new to Alteryx... But I have a large Excel file of data from Kickstarter projects and I only want to keep some of the product categories. The rest, I want to filter out. I was trying to use "Contains" in the Filter function to do this, but it gives me errors when I list multiple search terms, as you can see in the screenshot.

I am also not sure what to do with the false entries then. Since I don't want to include them in the dataset, is there an easy way to just thro

[jacob_kahn · Accepted solution]

@SandSlinky 

In Alteryx you have to format your filters a little differently when using OR/AND/etc.

Try doing something like this:

Contains([Field], "music") OR Contains([Field], "games") OR Contains([Field], "publishing") ..... etc.

If you are using the same field, you might want to consider using "AND" instead of "OR" 

Let me know if you need further help or assistance 🙂 

J

[AbhilashR]

Hi @SandSlinky, Welcome to the Alteryx Community! In addition to @jacob_kahn's suggestion, you could also use the IN function to set up your filter logic. 

Contains approach:

Contains([Category],"music") OR
Contains([Category],"games") OR
Contains([Category],"television") OR
Contains([Category],"film") OR
Contains([Category],"video")

IN approach:

[Category] IN ('music','games','television','film','VIDEO')

[jacob_kahn]

@AbhilashR Wow! I never knew of that function! That is amazing

Thank you!

[SandSlinky]

This worked, thanks so much!

[SandSlinky]

@AbhilashR Thanks! I used @the_jake_tool's suggestion which worked, but that seems even more convenient. Thank you both for the suggestions!