Filtering in Farseer

Filters let you narrow down the data shown in a sheet by selecting specific dimension members. You can turn any dimension or dimension table into a sheet-wide filter using the "Add Filter" option in the toolbar.

Filters appear as pills in the toolbar. Each pill shows the dimension name and how many members are currently selected — for example, "(All 12)" when everything is selected, "(3)" when three members are chosen, or the member's name directly when only one is selected.

Filters are part of your local configuration. They only affect your view unless you explicitly use "Save config for all" to apply them to other users.

Click the + Filter button in the toolbar to add a new filter. You'll be prompted to select a dimension or dimension table. Once added, the filter appears as a pill in the toolbar with all values selected by default.

To remove a filter, open it and click the remove button. Some filters may be non-removable if they were set up as part of the sheet's default configuration.

Filter options, with the "Filter display" option in action

Click on a filter pill to open its menu. The menu shows a checklist of all available dimension members, along with a search field for larger dimensions.

Each filter has several options, accessible through the more options menu (three-dot icon) inside the filter:

Only SKUs connected to "Odor Shield" are available

When you have multiple filters on a sheet, they automatically interact based on the relationships between their dimensions. Selecting a member in one filter highlights the relevant members in other connected filters.

For example, if you have a Brand filter and a SKU filter, and the two dimensions are connected through a foreign key relationship, selecting "Odor Shield" in the Brand filter will push all Odor Shield SKUs to the top of the SKU filter. SKUs that belong to other brands are greyed out and moved to the bottom of the list, since they don't match the current Brand selection.

This works across any number of filters. Each filter recalculates which of its members are still valid given the selections in all other filters. The more filters you apply, the more the remaining filters narrow down to show only what's relevant.

Members that are greyed out aren't hidden — they're still visible and can still be selected manually. This lets you see the full list while keeping the focus on what's connected to your current selection.

Dashboards have their own global filters, separate from individual sheet filters. These appear in the dashboard toolbar and apply across all tiles that opt into them.

Each tile can choose whether to use the dashboard's filters or its own. This is controlled through the tile's settings with the "Use this dashboard's filters" option. When a tile uses the dashboard's filters, its own filter bar is hidden.

→ Learn more about Working With Dashboards

A sheet can reference another sheet's configuration, including its filters. When "Use reference filters" is enabled in the sheet options, the sheet inherits the referenced sheet's filters and local filter editing is disabled. This is useful when multiple sheets need to stay in sync with the same filter selections.

→ Learn more about Sheet Toolbar: Rows, Columns, Display Controls & Sheet Referencing

Sorting in Farseer

Sorting lets you reorder generated rows in a sheet based on one or more columns. It works alongside filters and the "Only with data" toggle, giving you full control over how data is presented without changing the underlying model.

Sort rules live in the same toolbar section as filters. They're accessed through a single popover and can be reordered to define precedence. You can have up to five sort rules at a time.

Like filters, sorting is part of your local configuration — it affects only your view unless you explicitly use "Save config for all."

There are two ways to create a sort rule: through the sort popover in the toolbar, or directly from a column header.

Click the + Sort button in the toolbar to open the sort popover. From there, select a column to sort by and choose a direction — Ascending or Descending. If sort rules already exist, clicking the sort pill opens the same popover where you can add more rules or adjust existing ones.

Adding a new sort adds it to the bottom of the priority list, from where you can reorder it.

Sorting from the column header

Click on any column header to open its options menu, then select Sort and choose Ascending or Descending. This provides a quick, familiar workflow for sorting directly from the table without opening the toolbar popover.

Sorting from the column header adds the sort to the top of the priority list.

Sort rules are managed entirely from the sort popover in the toolbar. Each rule is defined by a column and a direction.

Rule order, notice how the February sort breaks the tie

Rules can be reordered by dragging them. The first rule has the highest priority, and subsequent rules are used to break ties. This lets you define exactly how multi-level sorting behaves — for example, sorting first by region and then by revenue within each region.

Each rule can be updated independently. You can change the column, switch the direction, or delete the rule entirely. A "Remove all" button at the bottom of the popover clears all rules at once.

For more advanced use cases, you can create a custom sort rule using a formula expression. When you select "Custom" as the column, an expression editor appears where you can define exactly what to sort by. This is useful for sorting by specific dimension member combinations or calculated values that don't correspond to a single column.

Top N limits the visible generated rows to the top results based on the current sort order. It's configured in the sort popover and applies after all sort rules have been processed.

Available options are 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, and 200.

In hierarchical sheets, Top N applies to each level individually. For example, if your sheet has three levels — Brand, Product, and SKU — and Top N is set to 10, each level will independently show only its top 10 rows.

Sorted list, showing top 5 + rest

When Top N is active, you can enable Show rest to group all remaining rows beyond the limit into a single aggregated "Other" row. This gives you a complete picture — the top results shown in detail, with everything else summarized in one line. When disabled, rows outside the Top N subset are hidden completely.

Sorting is also available on dashboard tiles. Both chart tiles and table tiles support sort rules, and they work the same way as in sheets — through the sort popover in the tile's toolbar.

Each active filter shows as a pill in the toolbar with its dimension name and a count of selected members. This makes it easy to see which filters are active and how narrowly the data is scoped.

When sort rules are active, a pill appears in the toolbar showing how many rules are applied (e.g., "2 Sorts"). Clicking the pill opens the sort popover. When no rules are active, a simple "+ Sort" button is shown instead.

When a column is used in a sort rule, its header displays a sorting arrow icon — pointing up for ascending or down for descending. This replaces the default column indicator and makes it clear at a glance which columns are controlling the current row order.