Custom Fields Power-Up - How do I search or filter on the different custom field types?
Asked by Steven Kimmelman:

I want to create a custom field for my cards to indicate I am waiting on someone before I can proceed with that task. I realize I can create a Label for this and perhaps that'll ultimately be the way I go. But it seems this is the sort of thing the Custom Fields Power-Up is useful for.

Does anyone know the different options for searching and/or filtering cards based on the Dropdown custom field type?

Here's what I came up against.

If I create a checkbox, "Waiting On", I can go to the board's filter box and type "wait" and those cards that have been checked will show up. The problem is, a checkbox doesn't include WHO I am waiting on. So I could also create a Text field and position it next to the Checkbox. Then on the card it looks like: Waiting On \> Robert.

![Screenshot - Trello - Waiting On checkbox.jpg](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/62202iA98ED6CABA40637C/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot - Trello - Waiting On checkbox.jpg")

And if I want to just search for Robert, I could do that to. But my main need here is to quickly find all the cards where I'm waiting on someone. So this Checkbox + Text field approach works, but it's kludgey.

SO, I created a Dropdown field instead called Waiting On. And I can just add names as items to that dropdown list as I need to. Now I'm only dealing with a single field.

![Screenshot - Trello - Waiting On dropdown.jpg](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/62203iCCC356BFD491C5B9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot - Trello - Waiting On dropdown.jpg")

BUT, I can't seem to use the board's filter box to find all cards where there is a value in the Waiting On dropdown. I can filter on Robert, but I want to be able to find ALL cards where I'm waiting on someone.

So, if I use this Dropdown list approach, does anyone know how I can find all my cards where the Dropdown field is not empty?

Thanks!


Answers:
author: Teddy
body: Hey Steven! There isn't currently a way to filter for all cards that have a value set for a certain field. I'm more than happy to pass your feedback about this along to our team for consideration. I think its a super interesting use-case that isn't fully solved by labels.

I would recommend a two part approach. First, you could have the drop-down field to indicate who you are waiting on. You can then have a Waiting On label that you apply to all cards with a value set for that Custom Field. You can even automate this using Butler!

That would let you filter your board for that label to show all cards you are waiting on, and will also let you search for specific people that you are waiting on.

comments: author: Steven Kimmelman
body: Hi Teddy,

Thanks for your detailed response. Yes, it's a use-case that I've come up against before and it would be really helpful to have that filtering ability.

The two-part approach is what I will do. I like your use of the Label better than my use of the Checkbox for that second part (though the Checkbox works too). The automated creation (and removal) of the Label is more elegant.


author: Peter_Backeris
body: I don't find this to be an acceptable answer..

<br />

Please explain the purpose of custom fields if you can't even search, let alone filter by them?

<br />

Would love to learn about the reasoning behind your development team's decision to leave such a basic, obvious, and relatively trivial feature out of this "next-gen" version. Pretty ironic that this is feature is overlooked by team developing tools for agile development. Perhaps you can change the status for this feature in the backlog to high-priority and assign a new developer to the task.

Maybe use the old generation boards to track the tasks for the next generation development on your end - it seems like this feature has been asked for a quite a while now and a lot of people are not using it because of it...


author: Pavlos Pamborides
body: Indeed!

I have set up my system with a custom field "Customer" that works really nicely with a drop down list. I now find that I CANNOT FILTER A SPECIFIC CUSTOMER!

So I have to redo the whole thing and use hashtags and such, with the added risk of spelling mistakes!

Come on!


Tags: custom-field

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