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How to Filter the Customers List

The Customers list can be narrowed in two ways: with the three tick lists in the filter rail on the left (Group, Category and Account manager), or with the filter button on any column heading. Every filter that is on shows as a chip on the filter line at the top of the Customers list, where you can change it or take it off.

How do I filter the Customers list by group, category or account manager?​

Tick the entries you want in the Group, Category or Account manager list in the filter rail on the left of the Customers list, and the list narrows at once to the customers that match.

  1. Open Customers from the navigation menu.
  2. Find the Group, Category or Account manager list in the filter rail, under Which accounts.
  3. Tick one or more entries. The Customers list shows customers matching any of the ticked entries in that list.
  4. Read the chip that appears on the filter line, for example Group followed by the groups you ticked.

Ticking in two different lists narrows by both: ticking a group and an account manager shows the customers in that group who have that account manager. Each list also offers Select all and None, and each entry has a menu with Show only this, which ticks that entry alone.

The same three filters can be set from the filter buttons on the Group, Category and Account manager column headings; the rail list and the column filter are the same filter, so a tick in one shows in the other.

What is in the Group, Category and Account manager lists?​

The three tick lists in the Customers list's filter rail come from your company's own data:

  • Group lists your company's customer groups.
  • Category lists every category that has been typed on at least one customer. A category is free text on the customer, so two spellings of the same word appear as two entries.
  • Account manager lists your company's ABM users, because an account manager is the ABM user responsible for the account.

ABM Service has no screen for adding a customer group or an account manager: groups are set up in ABM itself, and account managers are your company's ABM users, so ask whoever looks after ABM. A new category appears in the Category list once it has been typed on a customer and saved, the next time you open the Customers list.

While the lists are being fetched, the rail shows placeholders for a moment; the Customers list itself does not wait for them. When a list is long, type in the Search filters… box at the top of the filter rail to shorten the Group, Category and Account manager lists to the entries whose names contain what you typed. While there is text in that box, the Which accounts block is hidden unless what you typed is part of its name or of one of its four choices; clear the box to bring it back. Each entry can also be given a colour of its own from its menu, and the matching chips in the list's Group, Category and Account manager columns are drawn in that colour.

How do I filter the Customers list by address, phone or another column?​

Select the filter button on the column's heading in the Customers list, fill in the panel that opens, and select Apply (a date period applies as soon as you choose it). What the panel asks depends on the column:

  • Text columns — Name, Code, Address, Phone, Accounts e-mail, Delivery address, Eircode, Invoice to and VAT number (value-added tax number). Choose Starts with or Contains, then type part of the value (the box reads, for example, Type part of the address…). Case is ignored. With Contains chosen, the panel adds a note, "Contains cannot use an index — the whole customer table is checked. Fine here: it is one narrow read." It is a note, not a warning to stop: Contains works as usual on the Customers list.
  • Sales analysis — tick one or more of your company's sales analysis codes.
  • Opened and Last edited — choose a period: Today, This week, Last 7 days, This month, Last 30 days, This year or Last year, which applies at once; or choose Custom, fill in From and To, and select Apply. The panel explains that it "Shows the customers whose opened date falls in the window. A customer with no opened date drops out."
  • Your company's custom fields — a drop-down field offers its choices as ticks, and a yes-or-no field offers the two words the list shows. A number field asks for At least and At most (leave either blank for an open end), a date field offers the same periods as Opened, a short text field offers Starts with or Contains, and a longer text field is searched for the words inside it.

A column must be on screen for you to reach its filter button; add hidden columns by right-clicking a column heading and choosing Choose columns…. To change a filter, open the column's filter again; to remove it, select Clear filter in the panel.

How do I see which customers were added or changed recently?​

Add the Last edited or the Opened column to the Customers list, then filter it to a period such as Last 7 days, or sort by it. Both columns are hidden to start with.

  1. Right-click any column heading on the Customers list and choose Choose columns….
  2. Click Last edited in the Available pane of the Choose columns dialog for the date and time a customer's account was last changed, or Opened for the date the account was opened, and press Apply.
  3. Select the filter button on the new column's heading and choose a period: Today, This week, Last 7 days, This month, Last 30 days, This year or Last year, or Custom with your own From and To.

To put the newest first instead, click the column's heading twice: the first click sorts oldest first, the second reverses it. The period shows as a chip on the filter line, such as Last edited or Opened followed by the period, and a customer with no date in that column drops out while the filter is on. Check Which accounts too: while it is on Active, a new prospect is not in the list.

A customer created with New customer in ABM Service is given the day it was created as its Opened date. Saving a customer in ABM Service does not change its Last edited date, so Last edited shows changes made to the account elsewhere, not the ones made on the customer screen here.

What do the chips at the top of the Customers list mean?​

The chips on the filter line at the top of the Customers list say what the list is narrowed to, one chip per filter, so you can see the whole question at a glance even with the filter rail folded away:

  • The Filters button comes first. It folds the filter rail away and back (its tooltip reads Hide the filter rail or Show the filter rail), and it carries a number when filters are on: one for a picked customer, one for each ticked entry in any tick list (the rail's lists, Sales analysis or a drop-down custom field), and one for each other column filter.
  • Accounts always comes next and says which accounts are shown (Active, All, Inactive or Prospect). It never has an ×.
  • Customer appears when you have picked one customer in the search box.
  • One chip per column filter, named after the column, for example Group, Address or Opened, followed by what it is set to.

Select a chip's name to reopen its filter and change it; the Customer chip is the exception, because the customer is changed with the search box on the toolbar. Select the × on a chip (its name is Clear and the filter's name, for example Clear Group filter) to take that one filter off. Clear all filters, at the end of the line, takes off the picked customer and every column and tick-list filter at once, but leaves Accounts as it is.

Why can't I add another filter to the Customers list?​

The Customers list can filter at most ten columns at once. When ten are already on and you open the filter of an eleventh column, the panel says "A question may filter at most 10 columns. Clear one to filter this." Take one filter off with the × on its chip, then try again.

The Which accounts choice and a customer picked in the search box do not count towards the ten. Ticks in the rail's Group, Category or Account manager list do count: each of those lists is one column filter, however many entries are ticked in it.

Can I hide the filter rail on the Customers list?​

Yes. Select the Filters button at the start of the filter line on the Customers list to fold the filter rail away and give the list more room; select it again to bring the rail back. ABM Service remembers on this computer whether you left the rail folded, and the Calls list and the Scheduler follow the same setting.

Folding the rail does not remove any filter: the chips stay on the filter line and still apply. The search box on the toolbar also stays on screen, so you can still find a customer with the rail folded. The Layouts control lives in the rail and folds away with it.