List Box & Filter Tool

[ddavis216]

I am creating a macro with a List Box tool that allows users to a filter a large dataset by selecting their region comprised of select states. I am challenged with properly configuring the List Box tool through the Action tool both connected to the Filter tool. Can someone please take a look at the attached screenshot which shows the current settings and offer insight?

[Garrett · Accepted solution]

I'd recommend using the 'Generate Custom List' option in the List Box Configuration, with the goal of building up a list of Regions to put into the Filter tool as part of a [Region] IN ("abc","xyz") expression.

Then your action would be configured to "Update Value (Default)", pointing at the "Expression - value", and leveraging the "Replace a specific string" option.  See attached screen shots

[ELPyatt123]

Thanks, I found this to be very useful today.  

[Hadzramin_Rahman]

Thanks. It's really helpful.

[asifk]

This works great!

Thanks guys the decimeter was a colon

Happy solving!

Regards
Asif

Sent from my iPhone

[asifk]

Thanks Alot, 

Finally understand how to use a List Box Tool.

I have a question

the Values that you select will be used in the filter, i would like to add some form of description next to each line item and not affect the original values

eg. my choices are as follows:

10

20

30

40

50

I would like to have details like below 

10 - All Match

20 - Partial

30 - One

and so on....

is this possible?

[BenMoss]

when defining your list you can write two statements per line, a name and a value. The value is the bit that is passed into the workflow and the name is what the application/macro user will see.

So something like.

All match;10
Partial;20

And so on (though i cant rememver what the delimiter is)

Ben

[MarqueeCrew]

10 - something:10
20 - anything:20
30 - whatever:30

Etc etc.

Cheers,

Mark

[Hiblet]

I found it really helped to understand what was going into, and coming out of, the listbox, when trying to use a database or file as the items to display. 

To populate a listbox from a file or database, you need a Name and a Value field.  The Name is the pretty text that is shown to the user.  The value is what the tool returns when the options are selected.  Both are text. Example:

    Name,Value

    OptionNameA,OptionA

    OptionNameB,OptionB

    OptionNameC,OptionC

I would usually keep the Name and Value the same, but you can use pretty text for the user if you wish.

The listbox returns every Value item, with a True and False flag, as a text string.  Assume the user selects OptionNameA and OptionNameC:

    OptionA=True,OptionB=False,OptionC=True

I then processed this string with the TextToColumns tool, breaking first on commas, splitting to rows...

    OptionA=True

    OptionB=False

    OptionC=True

Once I had that, I could use TextToColumns again, using equals as the splitter, and split to columns...

    OptionA,True

    OptionB,False

    OptionC,True

Then I could use a Filter to drop all rows where the second column was false, and drop the True/False column...

    OptionA

    OptionC

I could then do a Join to the original data and get only the J output as rows that were selected by the user.

I could not find that kind of info anywhere, so I hope that helps someone else!

[Srini07]

Dear Garrett,

Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation on how to have the settings. I have been looking almost for a month for this . THANKS 🙂