Kentik Detect lets you apply dimension-based filtering in many locations throughout the portal, including Library dashboards, Data Explorer, alert policies, the analytics pages, and even the user admin page (where you can filter the traffic that’s visible to Member users). Filtering is applied with the Filtering Options dialog, which we’ve now redesigned in several different ways - read on!

First, we’ve restructured the dialog so that there are no longer separate working areas for ad hoc filters (defined in the dialog itself) and saved filters (Kentik presets or previously saved “company” filters). Instead, as demonstrated by the initial dialog state shown in the screenshot below, there is a single Filter Groups pane where you configure filter groups containing both types of filters.

Consolidating these working areas allows us to make a more fundamental improvement, which is to change the logic used in compound filters (filters built from multiple filter groups). It used to be that all filter groups with saved filters were first ANDed together and then ANDed with the combination of all filter groups with ad hoc filters. But now you can mix and match saved and ad hoc filters in the same filter group, either at a single level or nested, and groups can be either ANDed or ORed together.

In the filter group below, for example, you can see four distinct filters: two single-condition filters at top (source country and destination URL), then a saved filter (MYNETWORK_IN), and then a nested group that excludes traffic from two source cities.

To implement these new capabilities we’ve made some changes to filtering controls, notably the addition of the Add Saved Filter button to each filter group. As shown below, we’ve also made it easy to check the individual components of a saved filter. Just click the expand icon (right-facing triangle) to the left of a filter’s name to reveal a list of its parts.

Another improvement is that you can now convert a saved filter to an ad hoc filter, allowing you to build new filters from saved filters rather than starting from scratch. To do so, click the saved filter’s Customize button, which you can see at the top right in the screenshot above.

The enhanced flexibility that we’ve built into our new filtering UI now enables you to zero in on the precise result you need. For a complete explanation of the new filtering controls, see the Filter Groups Interface article in our Knowledge Base, or ask the Kentik Customer Success team at support@kentik.com.