Skip to main content
Solved

What does the "date" filter relate to in the custom analytics dashboard?

  • November 11, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 91 views
Rumi Matsuyama
Forum|alt.badge.img+1

I have a client who would like to create a custom analytics dashboard specifically focused on grant reporting.

In creating the dashboard one of the few filters available is “date” but there’s no indication of what dates are being filtered? In their use case, when they create the grants dashboard and attempt to use the “date” filter at the top to filter by award date (for example) it doesn’t work because the filter must be using some other date.  Like changing the date parameters in any way (last year, last week, yesterday) never changes the analytics charts at all. Because clearly whatever “date” is being filtered, is something completely unrelated to grants. 

But what “date” IS being filtered? we’ve asked EveryAction/Bonterra support this question several times via a ticket/thread that goes back to June 2025… and never received an answer.

Ideally, I would love if Bonterra could relabel that date filter to clarify what it is, as the generic “date” has confused and frustrated my client (and I).  Even though relabeling it probably won’t help my client build their custom grants analytics dashboard, it would help us understand the limitations and avoid clients wasting time reporting this as a bug. 

 

Best answer by Andrew Varnerin

Happy Friday ​@Sally Heaven , ​@asuh , and ​@Rumi Matsuyama !

 

We currently support a limited subset of filters that are useful across many report types, where we've hand-linked the "same" filters across them. For the case of "Date", we tried to match them to umambiguous Primary Date fields for a report. In this case it's exactly what you identified - there's a number of valid fields where we could make the case of which is the expected date for Grants, and we'd have to carefully interview and balance personas to continue the pattern (and similar for other data points).

We're relaxing the restriction and will be enabling setting report-specific filters for every report that can be configured on Analytics Dashboards. These will be set in the same top filter panel, below the globally-applied filters, and will only apply to charts that use that specific report, even if filters on different reports use the same name or apply to the same field in the system.

We'll be supporting most date, typeahead, and dropdown filters automatically, including those mentioned for Grants. Here's a preview of the new filters we hope to enable when a chart references the Grants report (subject to change):

Grants Report -> Grant Proposal Details

Proposal Manager
Has Proposal Summary
Grant Type
Grant Submission Deadline
Actual Submission Date
Program Manager
Program
Program Officer

Grants Report -> Grant Details
Start Date
Status
Status Date

Grants Report -> Grant Award Details
Result
Grant Period Start Date
Grant Period End Date
Expected Notification Date
Notification Date

Grants Report -> Organization Contact Details
Official Name
Common Name

Grants Report -> Primary Contact Details
Primary Contact Name

Working on final touches, and we'll be queueing it for QA soon. We’ll update once it's in the release pipeline and then finally released.

Finally - it's low-contrast and easy to miss, but each chart has a small funnel displaying which filters are applied when hovered.

Best,
-Andrew

Rumi M

    7 replies

    A
    Forum|alt.badge.img
    • asuh
    • Rising Star
    • November 12, 2025

    Thanks for this question. I’m on the same boat. Just sent a ticket to support, but so far, no luck on finding out the real date or how to change the date to reflect on the dashboard.  

      Liz Ragland
      Forum|alt.badge.img+2
      • Liz Ragland
      • Community Manager
      • November 13, 2025

      Hey  ​@Rumi Matsuyama and ​@asuh great question! 

      Widgets are typically connected to different report types and not all report types are compatible with the Date filter within the Analytics Dashboard. For example, the Moves Management report is setup to work with the date filter but the Grant report is not setup to work with the date filter. 

      I can see this issue has been surfaced to product fairly recently and I will be sure to share your comment with them as well. 

       

      Liz at Bonterra
        Sally Heaven
        Forum|alt.badge.img+2
        • Sally Heaven
        • Active Advisor
        • May 11, 2026

        Hi! I am wondering if any additional detail could be shed on why the Grants Report is not compatible with the Date Filter in the Analytics Dashboard. There are lots of different kinds of dates in the Grants Report, so maybe that’s why? If so, I wonder if clients using Grants could participate in an exercise to designate which date the filter should look at for each widget in a Grants-focused dashboard. For example:

        Grants Awarded by Campaign - Award Date

        Award Amounts by Grant Manager - Award Date

        Proposals by Grant Type - Proposal Due Date

        Past Due Follow Ups - Follow Up Due Date

        And so on. This would make the Grants Analytics Dashboard more attractive for grants clients. 

        Raise HECK, a Bonterra partner and certified Super User
        Andrew Varnerin

        Happy Friday ​@Sally Heaven , ​@asuh , and ​@Rumi Matsuyama !

         

        We currently support a limited subset of filters that are useful across many report types, where we've hand-linked the "same" filters across them. For the case of "Date", we tried to match them to umambiguous Primary Date fields for a report. In this case it's exactly what you identified - there's a number of valid fields where we could make the case of which is the expected date for Grants, and we'd have to carefully interview and balance personas to continue the pattern (and similar for other data points).

        We're relaxing the restriction and will be enabling setting report-specific filters for every report that can be configured on Analytics Dashboards. These will be set in the same top filter panel, below the globally-applied filters, and will only apply to charts that use that specific report, even if filters on different reports use the same name or apply to the same field in the system.

        We'll be supporting most date, typeahead, and dropdown filters automatically, including those mentioned for Grants. Here's a preview of the new filters we hope to enable when a chart references the Grants report (subject to change):

        Grants Report -> Grant Proposal Details

        Proposal Manager
        Has Proposal Summary
        Grant Type
        Grant Submission Deadline
        Actual Submission Date
        Program Manager
        Program
        Program Officer

        Grants Report -> Grant Details
        Start Date
        Status
        Status Date

        Grants Report -> Grant Award Details
        Result
        Grant Period Start Date
        Grant Period End Date
        Expected Notification Date
        Notification Date

        Grants Report -> Organization Contact Details
        Official Name
        Common Name

        Grants Report -> Primary Contact Details
        Primary Contact Name

        Working on final touches, and we'll be queueing it for QA soon. We’ll update once it's in the release pipeline and then finally released.

        Finally - it's low-contrast and easy to miss, but each chart has a small funnel displaying which filters are applied when hovered.

        Best,
        -Andrew

        Andrew Varnerin
          Sally Heaven
          Forum|alt.badge.img+2
          • Sally Heaven
          • Active Advisor
          • May 18, 2026

          ​@Andrew Varnerin thank you for this very comprehensive answer. I recall during the EveryAction Certified User event someone mentioned making more date filters available in analytics dashboards, although I didn’t know the specifics. 

          I also especially appreciate the note that hovering over the filter in the widget reveals which filters are applied to that widget. That’s a great thing to know.

          I took a spin through all of the help files about analytics dashboards and couldn’t find any mention about the overall date filter being compatible only with some reports, which date fields in reports they are compatible with, or any mention of the filter on widgets revealing which filters are applied. That kind of specificity in the documentation would be extremely helpful. I always read the documentation before asking a question or submitting a support case, but often information that I consider important, basic, or would have prevented my question is not present in the help files. I encourage Bonterra to consider adding more detail to the help files. 

          Raise HECK, a Bonterra partner and certified Super User
            rachel moody
            Forum|alt.badge.img+3
            • rachel moody
            • Community Manager
            • May 18, 2026

            ​@Sally Heaven Thanks for the feedback, Sally! We are currently working on updating the help center so I will pass this along and we can work on adding more details here. 

            Rachel at Bonterra
              Rumi Matsuyama
              Forum|alt.badge.img+1
              • Rumi Matsuyama
              • Author
              • Active Advisor
              • May 18, 2026

              ​@Sally Heaven  and ​@rachel moody  and ​ ​@Andrew Varnerin 

              Chiming in to say that YES specificity in help files would be great

              AND ALSO: having something on the dashboards and reports THEMSELVES that either explains things, or at minimum a tooltip in the reports that directly links to an evergreen help document that explains report or dashboard filtering and other methodology would be AMAZING.

               

               

              Rumi M
              Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement