One of the most common requirement that comes when creating Alteryx Apps involving a dropdown is to have (Select All) as one of the values. This value, if you have not inferred by now, would not be part of a data source but something we add to it. Basically I am trying to simulate what Excel does when ‘Sort & Filter’ is enabled as seen below – 



In this post I am going to demonstrate how to add this value in the drop down and how it then needs to be consumed in filtering the datasource. This post will have the following sections –

1. Get Dummy Data
2. Add (Select All) to Dropdown tool
3. Filter dataset using the ‘(Select All)’

1. Get Dummy Data

The test data which I am going to use for this post is the highest grossing Marvel Movies which I am getting from this link – Marvel Comics Movies at Box Office. I copied the first table and stored it in my local disk. In my Alteryx App, I have dragged this data as a Input Tool. Used DateTime Tool and Filter to create a unique Date Format.

Sample Data is shown below –

2. Create Filter with (Select All) in it

As next step I am going to create one Dropdown filter – ‘Studio’. For this post I am choosing the option – Manually set values (Name:Value – one per line). I have entered the values manually. As you can see I have kept the option ‘(Select All)’ as the first entry. 

If the data is coming via connected tool, ensure that source data for the filter is joined with the ‘(Select All)’ manual text data. Likewise, if it’s coming from external source, add this entry. Essentially because this value doesn’t exist, we would need to add it.

3. Filter dataset using the ‘(Select All)’

We identified our column on which we need to filter. We have created the values for the filter. It is now time to actually ‘filter’. I have now dragged in a Filter transform. Too much repetitive, isn’t it. I will now ‘filter’ (pardon the pun) going forward. Put the following entry for the ‘Customer Filter’ option as shown below –



Here is what we need to do next –
1. Connect the ‘search’ icon of ‘Studio’ dropdown to the lightning bolt of ‘Filter on Studio’ Operator. A ‘Update value’ operator pops up in between.
2. Click on the operator. Under the ‘Value or Attribute to Update:’ section, click on “Expression – value = ….”
3. Click on the checkbox ‘Replace a specific string:’ and just keep the value as ‘<studio>’ (without quotes) as can be seen below- 

That’s it. Essentially the logic here is the inclusion of OR expression of place holder value equal to ‘(Select All)’. When a specific filter is selected, the select all expression goes false and when ‘(Select All)’ option is selected, well this one gets true and essentially the filter will flow through all the data.

Same logic can be used for filtering the data say in a Dynamic Input with data coming from a particular SQL data source. Code for that would look like this – 

select *
from  really_awesome_table
where (
           that_parameter  = ‘<this_value>’
            or
           ‘(Select All)’ = ‘<this_value>’
          )

To test it out I have put in a summarize transform to group by ‘Studio’ and ‘Total Movies’. Let’s run the workflow.  Here is how the wizard looks like –


Here is how the output looks like, executing with (Select All) and individual Filter –