Filters Pane (Smartfilters) now available; plus new updates!

Microsoft

Quickly find the item you need!  

 

Filters Pane (previously known as Smartfilters) began rolling out at the end of January and I am excited to announce it is now available for use in Modern document libraries and lists. Find your content faster by using this new feature to filter metadata inside your library or list.

 

Filters PaneFilters PaneFor more details on the feature, visit the help article

 

Along with availability, the Filters Pane has a new capability of pinning. Any column in your list or library can be added to the Filters Pane via the Pin feature. To pin a column you want to add to the Filters Pane, select Pin to filters pane in Column Settings. 

 

pin screen shot.png

 

Pinning will become generally avaliable at the end of the week.

 

We hope this feature can help you find your content easier and faster. We look forward to hearing your feedback! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

52 Replies
Absolutely great stuff...it's rolled out in production tenants or for now in FR tenants?

The Filters Pane is in Production.  Pinning will be completely in product end of this week/begining of next! 

Brilliant!! Thanks for sharing this information

Thank you for this update

Works fine on one test doc library I have. However I have another test library with two managed metadata columns and the filter pane just keeps 'loading'. Does it have an issue with term stores?

Hi @Miceile Barrett,

 

I have a custom document library, with a custom image content type, that currently hosts about 110 images. 

SmartFilters worked before, but with less items. Now everytime I click the FiltersPane Icon, it's just stuck at "loading". 

Did something change for custom libraries, custom content types? FiltersPane works in every other doclib I tested.

 

Also some additional feedback I wish the FiltersPane would do: currently it only shows possible filter options from the folder location that is currently active, meaning it doesn't show options for items in subfolders. I wish the filterpane would just show all items from the document library (or from the current position and below), even if they are located in subfolders. Activating a filter would simply show the folder where the item is positioned.

Hi Andrew - thanks for mentioning this. We have just fixed this issue and the fix can be seen in 10 days!

Fantastic to see that the "Filters pane" is now included, I really needed it and use it for my team.
What I cannot find so far is how to organize/customize the pane.
Such as..
- remove a column from the filters pane
- order the columns within the filters pane

 

Can you please help me to find this options?

Thanks so much!

 

Other than that - well done!

Thank you @Miceile Barrett. This helps only to some extent with the earlier problem that I reported.

 

  1. However, note that it still has problems with the metadata (especially enterprise term-sets). In the classic-mode we have set metadata filtering on the document libraries and selected 5 term-sets for the users to be able to filter their documents on. In the modern-mode, filter-pane picks only one of the term-sets (the first one) and the rest are not available. Is this a regression?
  2. The links to "Click to see all" are messed up mashups with the tooltip. See the screenshot below: 

 

modern-nav-01.png

3. The "Click to see all" link open a property-pane to show the list of term-set values to choose from. This list looks incomplete. And moreover the buttons are faceless!!! See the screenshot below:

modern-nav-02.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there a limit of 3 filters that can show at one time in a library?   I cannot get more than 3 filters to show in the panel, regardless of the number of columns in the library view. 

 

When reviewing this support article, it mentions 3 default filters show.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-filters-to-change-your-view-of-files-or-list-items-2935...

 

 

Hi @Miceile Barrett,

 

Super excited about the FIlters Pane, especially allowing for a tree format, this is what had been keeping me from shifting our company to the new document libraray experience (which I love).

 

I may, however, have stumbled upon a bug.

 

When using managed metadata, in Library Settings, in the meta data column, if I allow multiple values, it creates a problem for the filter pane. Namely, if I then select more than one check box in the filter pane for that managed metadata, it gives an error message. And a cryptic one at that: "The specified view is invalid. The specified view might have been deleted or you might not have permission to view it. Contact the site owner for more information."

 

Since I suspect this is something you are going to want to address, I will provide additional detail below, along with screenshots.

 

First, here is how it worked in the classic view. I enabled multiple values, created a document, and set the properties of the document to two values.

 

As you can see below, when, in the classic Smartfilters, I select the parent term it properly shows the item that has the related child terms.

Classic View with Multiple Selected.JPG

 

Now, in your Filters Pane in the Modern Experience I was super excited the way you have the check boxes set up. I no longer would have to choose between viewing one child term or viewing all child terms (by selecting the parent term).

 

However, when viewing that library in the Modern Experience, when I check more than one box in that same metadata term set, I get the following error message.

Error in New Experience.JPG

 

 

Now if I go into the library setting for the column, and uncheck "Allow multiple values" like this:

Unchecking multiple values.JPG

And then go back to that same Filters Pane view, a voila, it works again, no error message.

 

No error.JPG

 

I hope you can find a way to fix this is a way that still allows for us to use multiple values. After all, one of the big selling points for using SharePoint instead of a file share is that you can tag an item multple ways, so you no longer have to pick one folder to save a file in.

 

I also hope you can keep the check box format of the filters pane so that you could, say, check two child terms and just see the results of that. I was really excited to see the possibility of that in how you designed filter panes.

 

Feel free to contact me if I can be helpful in testing, etc.

 

 

THANK YOU @Thaddeus Ferber - we had not been able to repro this anywhere. Your detailed notes helped me get a repro and we have found the root cause of the bug. My team is working on the fix and it should be avaliable in production the last week of July. 

Wonderful! You rock.

 

I am hoping your fix will still allow us to use the Filters Pane for columns that allow multiple values. And also that you keep the check box format of the filters pane so that you could, say, check two child terms and just see the results of that?

Correct - the fix will allows users to check multiple child terms without seeing the error. 

Great -- I think this is going to be a killer feature  the modern SharePoint document libraries!

Any update on the fix for selecing multiple values?  I still have this issue in my environment so am assuming it hasn't been released yet.  Wasn't sure if it's days away or it has been pushed back?  

 

I'm also having issues with the filter pane not loading the values as some have suggested above.  Not sure if this will be fixed in this next release too...

One of the many features that are missed in Modern libraries  is "Managed Metadata Navigation".

 

- Does MS positioning column filtering as alternative, or this is "personal productivity" feature and need to be done by each user for herself? In other words,  is pinning can be done as part of the "library ?desing" ( i.e. can columns can be pinned by developer so all users have the same pinned columns)

- can columns of type "managed metadata" be pinned ?

Hi Michelle,

 

I'm having an issue with the filtering pane in modern list views. I've included an Enterprise Keywords column in my list; while I can filter in other columns for managed metadata I cannot with this column. Whenever I enter one of the keywords, the list views shows up empty even though there are items tagged with it even in that view. Is this a known issue or do I need to change something in my configuration?

 

Regards,

Nils The term "Duldung" shows up here several timesThe term "Duldung" shows up here several times

 

 

Once I filter for it this is the view I getOnce I filter for it this is the view I get