Canvas controls make your doc easier to engage with and more intuitive for your team. When you add them to the canvas of your doc, you’re able to define how and where others interact with your doc, and create safeguards so your teammates can view or modify data without fear of breaking a table.

The most common use case for controls is filtering tables and views. They can be either personal (so they only affect the filtering for the individual using them) or collaborative (so they filter everyone’s view simultaneously). This article will cover how to create these controls, customize them, and use them to start filtering your data.

There are a few ways to create a control for filtering. You can either create one from the column header menu or from the filter builder. Or you can connect your tables to an existing control. Read on to learn more.

The quickest way to create a filter control is via a column header:

A control will appear directly above the table and will automatically be connected to the table or view. The control is ready to use! If needed, you can customize the control via the steps below.

Another option for creating filter controls is to go directly through the filter builder. This option requires a few more steps, but let’s you see a bit more of what’s going on “under the hood.”

That’s it! A control will be created directly above the table or view. The control type will match the selected column type. This control is automatically connected to the table as a filter, so you can start using it to filter. Just click on the control to modify the value, and watch the table or view filter accordingly. If needed, you can customize the control via the steps in the section below.

You aren’t limited to just one filter control per table. You can create any number of controls to let you and your teammates filter based on multiple columns at once. To do so, simply add additional controls via the steps described in either of the sections above.

You’ll see in the filter builder for the table that multiple filter rules now exist, one for each control. By default, these filters will be additive (notice the AND between the filter rules in the screenshot below). So the table will show results that are the overlap of the multiple filter criteria. If you instead want to see results that match either one control or the other, you can change this AND to an OR in the filter builder.

Once you’ve created a control and connected it to your table, you can customize the control as needed. Just right click on the control to open the settings panel.

Here you can give the control a name, which will allow you to easily reference the control in formulas and in other parts of your doc. You can also choose whether the control will be personal or collaborative (more on this below). You’ll also fill in or modify any control-specific fields (these vary depending on the control type). And finally, you have the option to set a starting value.

For each control you create, you can also choose to make it either a personal control or a collaborative control.

Note: Newly created controls will always be personal by default.

At the bottom of your control settings, you have the option to set a Starting value. This field allows you to specify the initial value that is populated until you choose to modify it. Note that this field is only available for personal controls.

For example, in the example control below, “Active” is the value that you will see if you haven’t modified the control value. Also, any buttons with the Reset control value action will revert the control back to “Active.”