Patent ID: 8005873

Claim:
A method for filtering data based on related information, the method comprising: providing a spreadsheet summary table that displays a select group of categories from a dataset; receiving a selection of a displayed category to filter, wherein the displayed category is displayed in the spreadsheet summary table and wherein categories related to the displayed category are not initially displayed in the spreadsheet summary table; in response to receiving the selection of the displayed category to filter, identifying the at least one related category related to the selected displayed category, wherein identifying the at least one related category comprises identifying the at least one related category based on at least one of the following: at least one column header of the first dataset, and tracking at least one existing entity relationship between a first field in the spreadsheet summary table and a second field from the dataset; providing the identified at least one related category for selection in a filtering window, the filtering window comprising a drop down menu selection comprising a plurality of drop down menu entries listing the displayed category to filter and the at least one related category, wherein each entry of the plurality of drop down menu entries concatenates the displayed category to filter and the at least one related category into a single entry of the drop down menu such that a selection of the single entry represents a selection of both the displayed category to filter and the at least one related category provided in the single entry; receiving filtering criteria, wherein receiving the filtering criteria comprises receiving a selection of both the displayed category to filter and at least one related category from the single entry of the drop down menu in the filtering window; and filtering, by a computing device, the selected displayed category based on the filtering criteria, wherein filtering the selected displayed category comprises filtering information in the spreadsheet summary table based on information not included in the spreadsheet summary table.