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1vote

How can I filter by a parent category?

Hi everyone!

I'm new to Notion and would like to organize my life with it :-)

Right now I have created a "Task" database, which I would like to reference to a "Category" DB. In the next step, I would like to create a view of the task DB which only shows the selected category. So far so good - I can do that.

My problem now is: I'd like to make a subcategory as a child of the category - ie in Category:

Medicine
-> Sonography

If I now have a task "study sonography" that I link to the child category "sonography", I would like it to show in a db-view that filters for "Medicine" including all subcategories... is that possible?

3 Answers

0vote

polle Points90570

You will need to create 2 tag selections for everything or create a categories database to relate everything.

Without having both category and subcategory in your content, you will no be able to filter like that.

Main Tag: Medicine
Secondary: Vision

The you can filter by main tag or by secondary one. The same applies for relations in case you prefer to have a categories database.

0vote

cyber-r commented

Thanks for your answer.
I've created a categories database and linked it to the tasks, but it seems I can only either link to the parent entry (Medicine) or to the child entry (Sonography)... I've tried linking twice to the categories DB, so I can select in the first linked entry medicine and in the second sonography... but that seems a bit unnecessary manual labor if they already have the Child/parent structure in the categories DB...
As the child category has a column titled parent entry (or similar - "übergeordneter Punkt" in German) I hoped to be able to link the task to this parent entry directly... is that possible?

0vote

cyber-r commented

So I guess right now I'd either link my tasks to the category table twice, once for the parent category, once for child category and then have the liberty to group by either - there will be the problem of recognizing parent or child categories.
Solution this would be to create another table, one for category, one for subcategory linking these two... the problem remains though, that I'd have to assign to my task both category and subcategory if I want to be able to group by the parent one...

1vote

polle commented

That is right, as I said above: Without having both category and subcategory in your content, you will no be able to filter like that.

If you consider my answer the solution, please select it to mark the question as solved.

2votes

cyber-r commented

Yes, I guess you're right... was just a bit frustrated that I'd have to enter both of them when they're already in a hierarchy... but I guess that's the way to go then, thanks :-)

0vote

5bze5zes5bzs Points140

I also had this prob. and was lurking in this thread while trying to figure it out and i think i found a solution - so i made an account.

You probably had problems because filtering for something will not show their children if they dont have the same tags right?

You can group for your wanted view and then hide all other tags.
Lets say you group for Medicine then the Children and their children like Sonography, ultrasound etc. will be still shown
In this View everything tagged with medicine and their infinite children will be shown this is very dynamic.

If you want only one to be shown and be dynamic if you add a new entry to the database i recommend making a new property for it and hiding it in all other views that is unique to it

You might think if i only want one thing then i just group by name and ID because filtering does also filter the children and grouping doesn't - Good thought but if you have a huge database you'd need to manually hide all other views you could group which if you have thousands of notes is very hard because you only can hide like 10-20 names or ID's that have now become a group on their own every time so either you sit their and click hide all for hours or you make a new group until their may be a better way to do it.

Screenshot of grouping by tag - "this"

Screenshot of grouping by status - "active"

0vote

cyber-r commented

Thanks - just tried that... but grouping doesn't seem to work as described if I try grouping my tasks (which are linked to the category DB) by the category... it will still group by every child category and not by the parent one.

0vote

5bze5zes5bzs commented

I've added some screenshots in my previous comments and in them you can see it working.

Can you add some screenshots of yours or a recreation where you are having diffuclties ?

1vote

cyber-r commented

Hey thanks again - I see it working in your screenshots on a single database, but not in a relation to another database... @polle seems to know that it won't work if you don't add both categories to the task.

0vote

5bze5zes5bzs commented

Oh,sorry ur right, glad that u found it anyway

1vote

cyber-r Points360

Hey everyone!

Found the answer I was looking for:

  • I make a relation between tasks - category
  • I make a rollup in tasks to category, looking up the parent
  • I can group the task by said rollup

:-)

0vote

polle commented

Thank you for sharing your solution.

0vote

cyber-r commented

I was so happy to be able to show the related rollup and I was sure that I could just group by it... but there doesn't seem to be a possibility to group by the rollup... any suggestions as to how to do it anyway?

0vote

polle commented

See my answer above :)

1vote

cyber-r commented

Got 'ya :-D So no work-around...

1vote

polle commented

Correct, if you need to filter using 2 variables, you need the 2 variables to be present.

0vote

cyber-r commented

I still don't like entering the parent category manually when it comes as a given using the rollup... I think I'll filter by the rollup manually and group by the subcategory :-P

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