What are filters for McGill Profiles

Each filter is a McGill Profile field (such as Department, Research Areas, Languages Spoken, etc.) that contains allowable values. These values are used to narrow down the list of profiles displayed in the Profiles List and present only a subset of relevant profiles.

All filters that have been enabled by the Site Manager will appear as blocks to the right of the Profiles List.

Each filter displays all the values available for that field, as well as a number indicating how many profiles are associated with that value.

In the example below, the "Research Areas" filter has been enabled and “Cancer” is listed above “Immunology,” not because C comes before I alphabetically, but because “Cancer” has more results.

You can display a further subset of Profiles simply by selecting a filter value.

For example, clicking on "Cancer" in the "Research Area" filter and "McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)" in the "Location" filter will only display Profiles meeting that criteria as shown below.

Each filter can be reset by clicking on the (-) beside the value.

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Steps to set up filters

1. Go to Structure > McGill Profile Field settings.
2. Under the FIELDS tab, click Field management.
3. Under Filterable fields, select the fields you would like to use as filters by selecting the option under the FILTER column.

   For example: If you want "Research areas" to be displayed as a Filter on your Profiles List, ensure that the Enabled and Filter boxes are both checked.

   Note: If a filter checkbox is checked, the field will automatically be enabled.

   
4. Click Save.
5. Now set up values for the filterable field. Click on Edit values in the OPERATIONS column for the desired field.
   
   1. Enter values that will be used as options, with one value per line. There is a limit of 50 values per block. The value will appear in the pick list when editing a person's profile and as a clickable link in the Filter block.
      

      NOTES:

      Note 1: To enable translation of Profiles and clean URLs for filtered Profile Lists, allowed values should be entered in the safe_key|Human readable option format, e.g., research_innovation|Research & Innovation.
      
      Human readable-only allowed values like Research & Innovation will still work, but the practice is discouraged as this results in long, non-user-friendly URLs with encoded characters. Finally, values will not be translatable into French when a safe_key is not present.

      Note 2: If you edit an allowed value in a filterable field, any profiles using the original value will continue to be sorted by that value in the Filter block. It’s best to create a new value and then update profiles accordingly.

      Note 3:The values in the "Laboratory" field can be links. Enter the name of the lab as HTML and it will display in the person's profile as a link. Example: <a href="http://www.mylab.ca">My Lab</a>

   2. Click Save.

      You can enter different values for English and French versions of the profile.

6. Ensure that the filter value is selected in at least one person’s profile:
   
   1. Go to a profile where you want to add a filter value and click Edit.
   2. Select a value. You can click on more than one value and it will be added to the Research areas field.
   3. Click Save.

The Research Areas filter and its corresponding value(s) will now appear as a block on the Profiles List page. If you select one or more value, only the profiles that correspond to those values will be displayed.

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Alternate method for setting allowable filter values

Alternatively, you can set allowable filter values by going to Structure > McGill Profile Field settings. Click the Fields tab and then click on the Allowed values tab.

You will see all the fields where you can set allowable filter values. Just be sure that a field has been enabled if you plan on including it in your profiles.

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