Overview

Certain LabKey queries (such as assay designs, issue trackers, and survey designs) can be defined at the project level. Data associated with such queries may be located within individual subfolders. You can adjust the scope of queries on such data to cover all data on the site, all data for a project, or only data located in particular folders. Scope is controlled using the "Filter by Folder" option on the (Grid Views) menu in the web part.

Note that Folder Filter is not available on study Datasets.

This allows you to organize your data in folders that are convenient to you at the time of data collection (e.g., folders for individual labs or lab technicians). Then you can perform analyses independently of the folder-based organization of your data. You can analyze data across all folders, or just a branch of your folder tree.

You can set the scope through either the (Grid Views) menu or through the client API. In all cases, LabKey security settings remain in force, so users only see data in folders they are authorized to see.

Note that there are many mechanisms for controlling data scope in LabKey Server. For details, see Controlling Data Scope.

Folder Filter Interface

To filter by folder through the user interface:

• Select (Grid Views) > Filter by Folder.
• Choose one of the options:
• Current folder
• Current folder and subfolders
• All folders (on the site)

Folder Filters in the JavaScript API

The LabKey API provides developers with even finer grained control over the scope.

The containerFilter config property, available on many methods on LABKEY.Query (such as LABKEY.Query.executeSql and LABKEY.Query.selectRows) provides fine-grained control over which folders accessed through the query.

For example, the LABKEY.Query.executeSql API allow you to use the containerFilter parameter to run custom queries across data from multiple folders at once. A query might (for example) show the count of NAb runs available in each lab’s subfolder if folders are organized by lab.

Possible values for the containerFilter are:

• Current (also the default)
• CurrentAndSubfolders
• CurrentPlusProject
• CurrentAndParents
• CurrentPlusProjectAndShared
• AllFolders

Folder Filters with the JDBC Driver

The LabKey JDBC Driver also supports the containerFilter parameter for scoping queries by folder. Learn more in this topic:

• LabKey JDBC Driver

Related Topics

• Controlling Data Scope - Other ways to control in LabKey Server.