Filter by custom fields
Asked by Roy H:

According to <https://blog.trello.com/trello-custom-fields-with-mobile-more-fields-api>:

* **Filtering** **:** Board filtering now supports text, drop down list, and checkbox fields, and will surface cards that have fields that match filtered terms.

I am unable to actually filter by any of this. If I enter the filtering menu, i cannot find or select any of the fields in order to filter.


Answers:
author: Alex Gorman
body: Expanding on the solution that [@WG Trello Admin](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4242124) provided earlier. I was able to filter custom fields using the following (both produced the same results, just different ways of applying the filters):

In the two examples below, I am trying to filter a custom field named "Platform" and only want values that match "02-ABS" returned.   

1. Passing filter arguments on the URL: <https://trello.com/b/Hs3xo5st/chemicals>**?filter=Platform:02-ABS**

The bolded section in the URL is what I added to have my cards filtered.  

2. In the filter, under keyword:  
**Platform:02-ABS
![Screenshot 2022-01-28 123246.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/180531iF98B1C942A690327/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2022-01-28 123246.png")**

comments: author: Marit Pernille B?rstad
body: I don't get this to work for me. I may get all the cards I want filtered, but I also get cards that don't have any value in the custom field or a different value. In the custom field name and the defined values for the custom field have two or more words and a space between the words. Does this make it more complicated for Trello to get it right?


author: Alex Gorman
body: Hi [@Marit Pernille B?rstad](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4742865) ! So, it does appear to be an issue when accessing custom data fields with spaces or custom data field values with spaces. In my testing, it does filter out some cards, but as you said, it retains ones that should be filtered out. Not sure what's going on here, so will need to investigate this further. I'll report back on my findings.


author: Marit Pernille B?rstad
body: I contacted Atlassian support and they said it was not possible to filter on custom fields, so I asked them to update the help pages on custom fields. I don't really understand how there is a big value with custom fields if they cannot be used for filtering.... If you succeed, I would love to hear about it :D


author: Marcio Nunes
body: High [@Marit Pernille B?rstad](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4742865) and [@Alex Gorman](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4732920) It seems that the first time you create the Custom Field and try to filter it does not work, but if you do other things like create/update another card or refresh the page it does work.

I am usign "-" to replace spaces when needed for the custom field value, and it seems to be working fine.

Please tell if it works for you.


author: Marit Pernille B?rstad
body: Interesting Marcio! Do you have an example?


author: Kelly
body: [@Alex Gorman](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4732920) can you filter by a custom checkbox field? thanks!


author: Alex Gorman
body: Looks like this is answered here: [Solved: Filter on a Custom Field Multiple Checkbox (atlassian.com)](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Filter-on-a-Custom-Field-Multiple-Checkbox/qaq-p/727139)


author: Danilo Dalosse
body: [@Marcio Nunes](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4801329) could you give us an example of how to filter?


author: Danilo Dalosse
body: woww it works for me...

My custom field name is Client and I'd like to filter my client ABC. So I did like this: Cliente=ABC


author: Alex Gorman
body: [@Danilo Dalosse](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5006547) So, is this now working for you? Sorry, it's not clear from your post.


author: Max Wardeh
body: [@Alex Gorman](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4732920)the article you linked to in your Aug 9 comment is related to Jira. I tried that syntax in Trello and it didn't work


author: Jeremy Noble
body: Yet another fundamental piece of functionality that is missing. You can't query your cards based on specific custom field values? ...ugh. Please hear the community.

comments: author: JannieT
body: Working perfectly fine in 2022. Please scroll down and upvote Alex Gorman's helpful answer so it is easier to find. And for the same reason, [@Roy H](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1306942) not sure if you can, but it will be helpful if you can mark that as the answer to your problem.


author: lumas_hotelbeds
body: [@JannieT](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/700263) for me it's not working


author: Alex Gorman
body: [@lumas_hotelbeds](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3527752) Can you share an example of what's not working? Not all filtering/searches are working 100%, but some do have work arounds.


author: lumas_hotelbeds
body: If I add a filter like this: filter=Initiative:Hotel-Onboarding-Program shows me cards without this value in the custom field


author: Susie Hines
body: Wait, this still hasn't been addressed? I think I'm looking for the same thing as everyone else on this forum. I want to be able to *filter* by multiple custom fields, NOT search. It is bananas that this either hasn't been resolved yet, or it's this difficult to figure out how to do it. Especially since that Trello blog from two years ago says "**Filtering** **:** Board filtering now supports text, drop down list, and checkbox fields, and will surface cards that have fields that match filtered terms."

Disappointing.


author: Eric Christensen
body: Hey Atlassian,

Are you going to respond to the inquiries on searching by custom field or continue to ignore this post?

Let alone the fact that you can not search things like check boxes, the text based search only works if your custom field is very specific. It breaks down almost every other time. Ex: I have a custom field "State" in which we populate the 2 character abbreviation for a state. How well do you think it works when I search across my cards for "OR". It returns cards that are associated to Oregon, sure, but it also returns any card with the text OR in a comment, or any other notes.

There should be some way to limit the search to only custom fields. If my custom field is state, I should be able to do a search like: "State: OR" and expect it to only return cards that match that custom field. You could apply this to check boxes too. If you have a checkbox "Done", you should be able to search "Done: Yes".

Please make Custom Fields actually usable for something other than data dumps.

Eric

Trello Business Class User/Administrator


author: Awais Kaleem
body: Hi Everyone,

Found the solution and a small bug in implementation. When Trello says you can filter on custom fields, they are right. But the filter needs to be applied in a very specific place and not the default search bar of board. You need to go to Board Menu\>Filter Cards and here is a search bar that will work on custom fields.

Don't know if this was intended or not, but it works for now.

comments: author: Rob Pomeroy
body: In 2021, I cannot find a "Filter Card" option in the board's menu or within search. Under profile pic \> Cards, there is no custom fields filter.

So there appears to be no way to filter specifically on whether a custom field checkbox is selected or not. As others have observed, this makes custom fields considerably less useful than they would otherwise be.


author: Dylan_Kennard
body: Is this still not possible? I cannot seem to figure it out.

Any reply on other threads from Atlassian yet?

comments: author: PM_Rita
body: The custom field still can't filter , right?

Another question , I can search the custom field in my kanban board , is this the same issue?


author: Hans-Christian Francke
body: The filter does simply not work for custom fields. So what is the usage when the filter does not apply to these fields?


author: WG Trello Admin
body: I have found that you can filter by custom field content by using {{%fieldname}}=filtertext

comments: author: Eric Christensen
body: Hey Lewis,

Thanks for this, this is the first promising lead I have seen. It's a shame it had to come from the community and not Atlassian.

Have you figured out how to account for spaces? For example, I have a custom field named "Sales Rep". The query {{%Sales Rep}}=Jane Doe does not work for me.

I also have a custom field called state, and I am able to get that to work just fine.

Did you find this documented somewhere?


author: Alex Gorman
body: You'll need to use percent encoding. You can represent a space on the URL by substituting it with **%20
<br />** In your example, this would be Jane%20Doe.  

Note the correct syntax I shared (also in this thread) for passing filters on the URL.


author: WG Trello Admin
body: Hi Alex, This is great advice. Thank you. Do you know how you would search for an empty field eg {{%Sales Rep}} has no value?  
I've tried "" but that doesn't seem to work for me.  

Also how would you get it to look for an exact string.  
eg a filter for Jane_doe_new would also find my_name_new and Jane_doe_old as they both have "_new" or "Jane_doe"


author: Alex Gorman
body: [@WG Trello Admin](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4242124) From what I understand, there is no encoding for spaces, so the only way I can see you filtering your example is when no value is explicitly set (ex. "No Sales Rep" or "Not Specified" - this way you can filter on these values.

For exact string matches, I'm not aware of a way to modify the search so only exact matches are returned when filtering custom fields.


author: Dean Wilson
body: Hi I also would like a better way to filter on custom fields.


author: Ather Aziz
body: Why filtering function is so complex in Trello? I want to filter based on a custom field of "importance" such as high, medium or low.  

There is still much room for improvement overall


author: Robin Moore
body: You can filter by custom fields using the Dashcard Power Up; it's free and made by Atlassian/Trello

<https://trello.com/power-ups/6048e897c73d032a983e2a7c/dashcards>


author: Esteban L?pez Betancourt
body: hey Attlassian people not sure if you know but is the 2021 and ending

please add sort by custom field!

custom field is already available for custom buttons under automation, sure all that logic is much more complex than sort by custom field ;)

comments: author: Robin Moore
body: You can create a board button and use the Butler sort by custom field action


author: Keruchan
body: What are the update on this? This is a necessity. So basic that

Either it is so basic so they assigned an intern to do it. But the intern suck so it has never been implemented....

Or

There is an existing powerup that can do the job and trello can get sued if they implement them.

comments: author: Robin Moore
body: Yes there is, Dashcard, and it's made by Trello!

<https://trello.com/power-ups/6048e897c73d032a983e2a7c/dashcards>


author: Joseph De Araujo
body: The only way I have found to be able to filter cards by custom fields is by using Power Query in Excel and using the Trello API to pull in the Trello information.

It works, but it's not accessible to everyone.

I am highlighting that if I can do it in the API, then it should be feasible to add it to the interface.


author: Sara Derdowski
body: Any update on this request for filtering by Custom Fields?

Without the filter feature, the Custom Fields option is not very functional.


author: Brian Azar
body: I'm able to filter, or Menu \> "Search Cards", if I search for the **values** of the custom fields. But this only applies to:

* Dropdown lists (search for the value of the dropdown you're looking for)
* Check boxes (searching for the check box label will only show cards with it checked)
* Text fields (again, only the value within the text field)

Unfortunately, the custom Date field is not searchable, at least from my initial attempts. For me, I have 2 custom date fields (reported, resolved), none of which will show when using the "due date" search.


author: L V
body: It's simply NOT possible to filter via custom fields at the moment.

Please address this issue.


author: Torben_trello
body: Hi Roy,

you can filter for any text on your boards in custom fields.

For example if you have a custom field mentioning "text". You can filter for text using the textfield displayed and the cards containing text in custom fields will be shown both on the web, desktop as well as in iOS via the filter feature on a board (magnifying glass icon).

if that does not work for you, please reach out with an example to trello.com/contact so we can check it out.

comments: author: AndrewB
body: I created a Done checkbox. How can I create a filter that hides items that are have Done checked? I read that I can also use due dates which have a checkbox but I don't want to add due dates to my cards.


author: Zuzana Sekerova
body: It's Jan 2019 and based on your reply from April 2018, [@Torben_trello](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1124444), it looks like I should be able to filter down a board based on the value of a custom text field or a custom drop-down list.   

I just tested it on [this board](https://trello.com/b/pyqI4Zki/apa-dog-foster-program-plea-board) looking to only see a filtered list of dog cards that are marked as "likes most dogs" in the "dog" custom field. I entered the search terms "likes most dogs" (even tried in quotes to look for an exact string of words) but other cards also show up that don't have those exact words.

Thoughts?


author: Shubham Gupta
body: Hello Team,

I have the same question. how can we filter the data based on custom fields. I added custom fields to segregate the data after apply filter on them, but seems it is not doable.


author: Shasti W
body: Joining the party here :) custom fields aren't terribly useful if you can't search or filter them. I'm trying to use checkboxes to track cards that meet certain criteria, but it's not helpful if I can't then filter to show only cards that match.


author: amberic
body: [@Torben](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/498613) your suggestion that you can search for any text doesn't work. Please see the other posts here. We need to be able to do a search that limits to ONLY a specific custom field. For example, search the for all cards that have the custom field titled State for the text "WA". Another example, search all cards with for the custom field checkbox titled "Done" with a value of true.


Tags: custom-field

filter