More query operators for the Category Selector in ArcGIS Online Operations Dashboard

[Zach_Robinson]

The Category Selector in Operations Dashboard currently allows Single choice selections and Multiple choice selections. The query operators for Multiple choice selections are "include" or "does not include." These operators do not offer the same functionality as the operators "contains" or "does not contain." ESRI Customer Support explained this to me in an email:

I've done some digging into this issue and I think I've pinpointed the confusion.The 'include' operator works as an 'equals' operator when only one value is selected, works as an 'IN' operator when multiple values are selected, but never works as a 'contains' operator. This means that the query is looking for fields that exactly match the string you've configured as the query value. The result of this is that when you select multiple values, for example [category1] AND [category2], the category selector will filter to show only features that have [category1] OR [category2] as the value for the selected field. However, a feature that has the value of [category1,category2] would not be shown because the value is not an exact match despite containing both search terms.

My idea is to add two additional operators to the Category Selector in Operations Dashboard: "contains" and "does not contain." These operators will allow querying categories that are comma-separated in a single field. (This comma-separated format is standard for Multiple Choice data from Survey123.)

[jessneuner]

This would be very helpful for us.  In some instances we wind up storing the same data twice to enable filtering with dashboards.  Would be great to use the data as captured.

[HMOFFAT]

I too was just looking for this functionality. My arcade skills are not the best, I wondered if it could be done that way using a data expression? Anyone tried that? ie generating a new field and manually grouping contained values?

[Hoquez]

This is an absolute necessity for me. 

[Erwinvan_Veen1]

How come this isn't implemented yet? It would be logical to have such an option for efficient data collection and storage. For example in cases where an activity is relevant in two or three seasons, but not all. Or where an activity is relevant for several age categories, not just one. I would not want to store those as separate features as it creates too many features.

Simple example below.

Activity name	Age(s)	Season(s)
Visit a farm	4-7 years; 7-10 years	All year round
Visit a power plant	7-10 years; 10-12 years	Summer; Fall

[Anonymous User]

2 years under consideration for what should be a basic functionality!  The selectors in Dashboard need to have the same operators that are avilable in filters. 

[LaurencePerry]

I actually can't overstate how big a problem not having this basic feature has been for our team, causing literal weeks of extra work to try to find the best work around for each project.

Like many, our solution has usually been to separate comma separated values into different fields in the underlying data (or generating a feature dataset in arcade), and then use multiple category selectors pointed at each field. However, this very quickly begins to break down when possible values grow beyond a small handful and is inelegant and unintuitive in the first place.

[PaulMorris2]

This is a requirement for us as well. We use a lot of S123 multiple choice questions plus comma separated values from other sources and are hamstrung by the lack of the contains filter. Multiple people on our  team have ran into this in the last couple years and the workarounds are a pain or involve a separate application altogether.

[WilliamRockwell1]

I think the only way to get around this is to replace the dashboard with an experience. Anybody else do this? Experiences allow for much more detailed searching/filtering. Will probably will be a time saver for you. 

[PaulMorris2]

Good suggestion that may work for some. We looked at Experience Builder, but unfortunately it doesn't have all the URL Parameter options available in dashboards that we need for some apps at the moment!

[WilliamRockwell1]

According to this, you may not *need* url parameters in experiences. For example you could make a page that has the data filtered a certain way and just link to that URL. 

Solved: Re: De-mystify Experience Builder URL parameters - Esri Community