Criteria Inheritance Rules

Cells specified by intersection or by single-cell criteria inherit their selection criteria according to the following rules:

  • Criteria defined at the worksheet level specify defaults for the entire worksheet. Criteria at the worksheet level are combined with criteria for columns, rows, and cells, except where the row, column, or cell criteria give a different value for the same criterion. In this case, the worksheet criteria are overridden.

  • For the intersection of row and column criteria, criteria are combined where possible. For example, if a row with vendor ID filter criteria intersects with a column using query criteria, both criteria determine the resulting cell value. But if a row and column conflict—for example, if both specify a training location—the row overrides the column criteria.

    However, there is a distinction between filter criteria (for example, Product tree nodes), and criteria types limited to one source, such as query or ledger data source, TimeSpan, and reversal. Data source, TimeSpan and reversal criteria follow the override rules, but filter criteria are added as you go through the sheets, columns, and rows (but not cells). Filter criteria accumulate through this process without regard for the fields they reference.

  • A cell can inherit other criteria, such as ledger or TimeSpan, from the sheet, column, and row levels. A cell’s individual criteria, such as a ledger, overrides anything inherited from another level. However, because a cell might need to exclude criteria for a field, PS/nVision ignores inherited filter criteria at the cell level.

  • After the above rules have been applied to constructing a query to retrieve data for a group of rows and columns, any instance criteria (from either a scope or the parent instance of a DrillDown) are applied. These do not replace filter criteria from the layout; the instance criteria are added to the other filter criteria (either sheet, column, row, or cell).

The following illustration summarizes inheritance rules for non-filter criteria.

Inheritance rules for non-filter criteria