Filter tasks or resources

Project 2010 three ways to filter the tasks or resources in your project provides predefined filters for viewing specific aspects of tasks and resources. If none of these filters meet your needs, you can create a new filter or modify an existing filter.

• Predefined filters    These are filters that ship with Project. These are used to quickly filter for tasks or resources, such as tasks that are incomplete, or resources that are overallocated.

• Custom fitlers    These are filters that you design for you own project needs.

• AutoFilters    When these are turned on, they appear as arrows at the top of each column in a sheet view. Use these to quickly filter the items in a column.

In this article

Filter tasks or resources

Apply or remove a filter

Apply a color to filtered tasks using a highlight

Create a custom filter

Modify an existing filter

Use AutoFilters to filter quickly

Apply and remove AutoFilters

Create a custom AutoFilter

Turn on AutoFilters automatically for new projects

Filter tasks or resources

There are times when you want to view only a particular type of information in your project. For example, you may want to view only the milestones of your project or see tasks that haven't started. If your project has many tasks and involves many resources, filters can be very useful for viewing a specific range of information. Filters allow you to display only the information you are interested in and hide the rest.

You can filter task or resource data using the pre-defined Project filters. If none of the filters meet your needs, you can create a new filter or modify an existing filter.

Apply or remove a filter

1. On the View tab, in the Data group, click a filter in the filter list.
   
   

   To apply a filter that isn't on the list, click More Filters.

   • To select a task filter, click Task, click a filter name in the Filters list, and then click Apply.

   • To select a resource filter, click Resource, click a filter name in the Filters list, and then click Apply.

     Note: You cannot apply task filters to resource views or resource filters to task views.

2. If you apply an interactive filter, type the requested values, and then click OK.

3. To turn off a filter, click No filter in the list of filters.

Apply a color to filtered tasks using a highlight

When filtering tasks or resources, you can apply a highlight. Highlighted tasks or resources appear with non-filtered tasks, but with a different color.

1. On the View tab, in the Data group, click a filter in the filter list., and then click More Filters.

2. Select a filter in the filter list, and then click Highlight.

Tip:  To apply a different color to the highlighted tasks, use a different text style. Click the Format tab, and then click Text Styles. In the Item to Change list, select Highlighted Tasks, and then select formatting options.

Create a custom filter

1. On the View tab, in the Data group, click the filter list, and then click More Filters.

2. Do one of the following:

   • To create a task filter, click Task, and then click New.

   • To create a resource filter, click Resource, and then click New.

3. Type the name of the new filter in the Name box.

4. If you want the filter to appear in the list of filters in the Data group, on the View tab, select the Show in menu check box.

5. In the And/Or column, do one of the following:

   • To display rows in your view that meet both conditions, click And.

   • To display rows in your view that meet either one condition or another condition, click Or.

6. In the Field Name column, select the field you want to filter.

7. In the Test column, select the operator you want to use to match the value with the selected field.

8. In the Value(s) column, select the values you want to match, or type the value in the box above the table of filter criteria.

9. To add multiple criteria to the filter, complete multiple rows in the criteria table.

10. If you want the filter to display the summary rows for the filter results, select the Show related summary rows check box.

Note: 

• You cannot apply task filters to resource views or apply resource filters to task views.

• If you enter three or more criteria within one group of expressions, the And statements are evaluated before the Or statements. Across multiple groups of expressions, however, the conditions are evaluated in the order that they appear.

• To group your criteria so they are evaluated together and not with other criteria, leave a blank line between the sets of criteria, and then select an operator in the And/Or column of the blank row.

• When typing a value with the Equals or Does Not Equal test for a filter, you can use a wildcard character, such as a question mark (?) to find any single character, or an asterisk (*) to find any number of characters. The specified Field Name must contain a text value, such as Name, rather than a numeric value, such as Duration.

Modify an existing filter

1. On the View tab, in the Data group, click the filter list, and then click More Filters.

2. Do one of the following:

   • To modify a task filter, click Task, click the filter you want to modify, and then click Edit.

   • To modify a resource filter, click Resource, click the filter you want to modify, and then click Edit.

3. Modify the settings for the filter using the controls in the Filter Definition dialog box.

Watch this video on filtering a view.

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Use AutoFilters to filter quickly

You can apply an AutoFilter to fields in any sheet view. In addition to standard filters, project provides AutoFilters, visible at the top of each column in sheet views.

Apply and remove AutoFilters

1. On the View tab, in the Data group, click the arrow for the filter list, and then click Display AutoFilter.
   

2. Click the AutoFilter arrow next to the column heading that contains the information you want to display, and then click a value to filter the table.
   The AutoFilter arrow and field heading turn blue.

3. To apply an additional condition based on a value in another column, repeat step 2 for the other column.

4. To remove the filtering on a specific row, click Clear All Filters in the AutoFilter list for that field.

5. To turn off AutoFilters, click Display AutoFilter again.

   Note:  If information changes in one of the rows in your view, you can refresh your AutoFilter settings by clicking the arrow and reselecting the filtering values.

Create a custom AutoFilter

1. Turn on AutoFilters.

2. Click an AutoFilter arrow, point to Filter, and then click Custom.

3. Click the operator you want to use in the first box, and then type or select the value you want to match in the second box.

   For example, to match a specific date in a date field, click the equals operator in the first box, and then select the date you want to match in the second box.

4. To apply two conditions to the AutoFilter, do one of the following:

   • To display rows in your view that meet both conditions, click the operator and value you want in the second row of boxes, and then click And.

   • To display rows in your view that meet either one condition or another condition, click the operator and value you want in the second row of boxes, and then click Or.

5. To save your AutoFilter settings, click Save.

   If your view already has a predefined filter applied, then the conditions you set for the AutoFilter are included as additional conditions to the current filter. When you save an AutoFilter setting, the filter is saved with other filters in your file and is available only through the More Filters dialog box.

Turn on AutoFilters automatically for new projects

1. Click the File tab, and then click Options.

2. Click Advanced, and then in the General section, select the Set AutoFilter on for new projects check box.

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