Filter & search guide

All three end up in the same place — pick whichever suits you:

1. + Add filter — the no-typing route. Pick a column, pick how to match it, tick the values, press Apply. Multi-select is checkboxes. This is the old dropdown panel, except it holds every column and lets you tick more than one value.
2. Type in the box — start typing a column name and the list appears; press Enter or Tab to take a suggestion. After the colon it suggests real values from your data. ↑ ↓ to move, Esc to close.
3. Just type a word — anything that isn't a column:value is searched across the list's main text columns at once. On the staff list that's staff number, name, nickname, contact, WhatsApp and email; other lists search their own.

Press Enter (or the Filter button) to apply. reset clears everything and forgets the remembered filter.

Once applied, each filter appears below the box as a plain-English chip: Department is any of FINANCE or ADMIN × Click its × to drop that one filter and re-run — you never have to edit the text to undo something.

A chip with a dashed border is one the list applied for you (see Filters a list adds for you). A red chip is one that could not be applied — see When it turns red.

Type any word on its own and it is matched against the list's main text columns at once, anywhere in the value, ignoring case. On the staff list those are staff number, name, nickname, contact no, WhatsApp, email; every other list searches its own — a document library searches titles, a payroll list searches names and staff numbers, and so on.

Two separate words (ahmed ali, no quotes) are two searches, and a row must match both.

The shape is column:value — no spaces around the colon. Several filters separated by spaces must all match:

Columns answer to their everyday names as well: dept:, nat:, phone:, manager:, grade:, contract:, probation: and more all work — see All columns. Autocomplete inserts the quotes for you whenever a value needs them.

A comma means “any of these” — this is the thing the old dropdowns could not do:

Building one by typing: pick the first value as usual, then type a ,. The list reopens, and from then on every value you pick keeps the list open — so the comma is typed once, not once per value. Press space when you're done.

Or don't type at all: + Add filter → Department → is any of gives you checkboxes.

When you don't want to list every value, match on part of the name instead. ~ is “contains”, ^ is “starts with”:

Case doesn't matter, and you never type % yourself. One ~ filter often replaces a long comma list — department:~BOATYARD catches every BOATYARD department, however many there are and whatever gets added later.

A leading - inverts any filter, including a list or a partial match:

Rows with nothing in that column count as “not it” — -department:~fin includes staff with no department at all, which is normally what you mean.

Read * as “has something”. These take no value.

Write a date as 2026-01-31, or relative to today: today, +90d (90 days ahead), -30d, +6m, -1y. Relative dates are worked out when you press Enter, so the link you share is a fixed date.

<= and >= include the day itself; < and > don't. An expiry chase deliberately has no lower bound, so rows that expired last month — the urgent ones — stay in the list. When you filter on an expiry the list grows a matching date column, sorted with the most urgent first.

.. works on dates too. Both ends are included.

Which ones apply depends on the kind of column — + Add filter only ever offers the legal ones, and typing an illegal one tells you which are allowed.

Everything is joined with AND, and there is no or keyword or brackets — the comma is how you say “or”, within one column.

These are the columns on the staff list — the fullest set, shown here as the worked example. Every other list (leave, payroll, accommodation, documents and the rest) has its own columns; open + Add filter on that list, or start typing in its box, to see them. The operators and syntax on this page are the same for all of them.

Every column below can be filtered on. The also answers to spellings mean exactly the same thing — use whichever you'd say out loud.

Not sure of the name? Type the first few letters — the list matches the column's label and its nicknames, so “div” finds Department.

A list can start with a sensible default already applied, shown as a dashed chip so you can see it and drop it. The staff list is the clearest example: it leaves out anyone terminated or resigned unless you ask otherwise — Excluding past staff × Click its × to include everyone.

On the staff list this default also steps aside the moment you mention status: yourself — so status:Terminated,Resigned shows leavers only, and status:Terminated,Resigned department:* narrows that to leavers who still hold a department. Other lists apply their own defaults in the same way, and any of them comes off with a click.

A filter that can't be applied is never quietly ignored — it comes back as a red chip saying why, and the rest of the query still runs:

• Unknown filter “xyz” — no such column. Check the list.
• Status can't be filtered that way. Try: is, is any of. — the operator doesn't suit that column.
• “soon” isn't a date. Try 2026-07-30, today, +90d or -30d. — the value didn't parse.
• You don't have permission to filter by date of birth. — see below.

This is deliberate: a filter that silently did nothing would show you a wrong-looking list with no explanation.

The whole filter lives in the page address, so copy the URL and send it — the person who opens it sees the same list (through their own permissions). Bookmark it for a view you run every week. Old bookmarks from before the filter box still work; they redirect to the new form automatically.

Your last filter is remembered, per list. Come back to the same list later — from the menu, from a link, tomorrow morning — and it's still applied. Each list remembers its own filter separately. Press reset to clear it and start from the full list.

Clicking the box while it's empty offers your recent searches, the last ten. Both of these are kept in this browser only, never on the server.

Pay and personal columns — bank account, date of birth, addresses, emergency contacts, termination reason, special remarks — need the Sensitive · Pay or Sensitive · Personal permission. Without it they are absent from the suggestions and from + Add filter, and typing one is refused rather than ignored. That's on purpose: filtering on a date of birth would let someone narrow it down guess by guess, which is exactly why those columns can't be sorted on either.

Copy any of these into the box:

Whatever you end up with, Export CSV gives you the same rows as a file, and clicking a column header sorts them without losing the filter.