[Feature Request] Add custom filters (must-have feature!)

[vladislav1q]

As a user, i want to see custom filters in "Filters" section in Dashboard.
How to:

• when running rf-dashboards: robot_dashboard ... --custom_filter="ComponentARelease:ComponentBRelease" --custom_filter="TestRelease"
• when pushing xml: curl -X POST ... -F "tags=$ROBOT_TAGS" -F "custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.1:ComponentBRelease=2.5:TestRelease=10.6"

Tags are useful. But it is not always easy to maintain group of tags. It is better to have them in another custom filter. So, that as i user, i will add many tags and after its aim is determined and does not change over time, i will create custom filter for them.

[vladislav1q]

This should be very useful for filtering tagged on upload data.

[timdegroot1996]

Just to make sure I understand you want to be able to create dashboards based on specific tags or filters to make sure that not "all" data from the database is in the dashboard but only the set you are filtering for?

[vladislav1q]

Exactly. I want to filter data not only by tags/dates/time, but via custom filters as well.

[timdegroot1996]

I'm wondering if the grouping of tags isn't already available with the filter profiles? In there you can easily group certain projects by tag, by name, by version or even by date. Doesn't that achieve what you want?

[vladislav1q]

No, this is not the solution. Groupping solves the problem, when the tags are static. But launch tags changes in time, so grouping will be hard to maintain.
E.g. I want to add filter for a tested component release number and filter only by component version filter, not in general tags. Another examples: test type, environment, executor server and so on.

[timdegroot1996]

Can you elaborate a bit more on what should be added and where. It's still a bit vague to me.

To clarify from my side, the current process is as follows:

1. You upload outputs to the database
2. The database generates a dashboard with ALL data available in that database
3. In the dashboard.html you can filter based on all added tags/versions etc, that is available.

My question is in which of the above steps do you want to add additional filter options and how should it work?

To be clear what I think is already available and is related to your issue:

• If you want to separate certain projects that should not touch at all you should use different databases
• If you want to filter on specific data, then version or tag are good solutions within a certain project

[vladislav1q]

These new filters should be defined when rf-dashboard is launched. And added it the same way as output.xml is pushed.

[vladislav1q]

I think when pushing xml:
curl -X POST ... -F "tags=$ROBOT_TAGS" -F "custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.1:ComponentBRelease=2.5:TestRelease=10.6"
adding filter (if filter was not defined when rf-dashboard launched) will also be useful to avoid restarting dashboards. But it is not required. At least statically defined filters should work.

[vladislav1q]

@timdegroot1996 please, tell me if i need to provide extra details.

[timdegroot1996]

@vladislav1q some extra details regarding how this should work would be nice.

My questions are as follows:

1. How are these custom tags linked to the outputs, or are they just regular tags that you add like this? robotdashboard -o output.xml:tag1:tag2
2. What "defines" a custom filter and what outputs/runs should be filtered (so included) when the filter is selected, this part is not clear to me with your example custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.1:ComponentBRelease=2.5:TestRelease=10.6
3. So in the custom example above, what is the filter name, and what are the filter values?

Let me know how you would like to see this work. Maybe an example with like 5 output.xml's could help.

Possible example data:

1. output_1.xml, with tags v1.1 componentreleaseA, testrelease2
2. output_2.xml with ...
3. etc...

And then show me an example of how the custom filter would show in the dashboard and which of the 5 runs are selected with each filter. Or even how the options of that filter would be defined.

[vladislav1q]

1. Like regular tags. When i push output.xml on launch or via HTTP, i will define if pushed xml should be labeled by custom label and value
2. robot_dashboard ... --custom_filter="ComponentARelease:ComponentBRelease" --custom_filter="TestRelease" - it is a static definition of some custom filters, that should be displayed in browser in Filters form. When i push data i should have possibility to set filter name and its list of values (like define tag and list of tag values)
3. ComponentARelease, ComponentBRelease, TestRelease - filter names. ComponentARelease filter will have possible options to select: "None, All, 1.1". ComponentBRelease filter will have possible options to select: "None, All, 2.5". TestRelease filter will have possible options to select: "None, All, 10.6".

[vladislav1q]

In a "Filters" form there must be all custom filters: ComponentARelease, ComponentBRelease, TestRelease. Their values must be calculated dynamically from uploaded xml results.

[timdegroot1996]

Thanks for the additional detail — I want to make sure I've understood this correctly before implementing anything, so let me describe the workflow as I understand it.

Step 1 — Define the custom filter dimensions at server start (static)

You launch the dashboard server and declare which named filter dimensions should exist in the UI:

Note: this step might even be left out since you can determine the custom tags based on the provided data from step 2? Is that correct?

robotdashboard --server \
  --custom_filter="ComponentARelease:ComponentBRelease:TestRelease" 

This tells the server that ComponentARelease, ComponentBRelease, and TestRelease are distinct filter dimensions that should appear as separate dropdowns in the Filters section of the dashboard.

---

Step 2 — Push results with values for those dimensions

Each time you upload an output.xml, you attach a value for each relevant filter dimension:

# Run 1 — ComponentA v1.1, ComponentB v2.5, TestRelease 10.6
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/output \
  -F "file=@output_sprint1.xml" \
  -F "custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.1:ComponentBRelease=2.5:TestRelease=10.6"

# Run 2 — ComponentA v1.2, ComponentB v2.5, TestRelease 10.7
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/output \
  -F "file=@output_sprint2.xml" \
  -F "custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.2:ComponentBRelease=2.5:TestRelease=10.7"

# Run 3 — ComponentA v1.2, ComponentB v3.0, TestRelease 10.7
curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/output \
  -F "file=@output_sprint3.xml" \
  -F "custom_filters=ComponentARelease=1.2:ComponentBRelease=3.0:TestRelease=10.7"

---

Step 3 — The dashboard populates filter options dynamically

After those three uploads, the Filters section in the dashboard shows three new dropdowns, with values populated automatically from what has been uploaded:

Filter	Available options
ComponentARelease	None / All / 1.1 / 1.2
ComponentBRelease	None / All / 2.5 / 3.0
TestRelease	None / All / 10.6 / 10.7

---

Step 4 — Filtering behaviour

• Selecting ComponentARelease = 1.2 → shows only Run 2 and Run 3
• Selecting ComponentARelease = 1.2 AND ComponentBRelease = 3.0 → shows only Run 3
• A run with no value set for a dimension (e.g. it wasn't included in custom_filters at upload time) is excluded when that dimension filter is active

---

Why this is different from regular tags

Regular tags all appear together in a single list (v1.1, env-staging, smoke, component-A, etc.), which makes it hard to filter cleanly by a specific dimension when tag values change with every release. Custom filters give each dimension its own dropdown — so ComponentARelease never gets mixed in with environment tags or test type tags — and the available values are always derived from what's actually in the database rather than being maintained manually.

---

Is that the behaviour you're looking for? And to confirm: should a run that has no value for a given custom filter be shown or hidden when that filter is active?

PS: I asked AI to summarize nicely what I wanted to confirm hence the AI like answer.., but it got my thoughts across 😄