Understanding differences in Filtering behaviour in Atlas

A very important aspect of Atlas is the ability to contextualise information using metadata tagging, and by adding tags to our content we can determine where it will appear and how users may find it via search.

A common point of confusion with tagging that we want to address in this article is the difference between using the Page Details to signal to the In Focus web parts which content to show, versus adding filters directly to the web part(s).

The main point of confusion to discuss here is the inclusion or exclusion of "child" tags when selecting a "parent" tag.

Behaviour of tagging via Page Details

When we tag a page with specific metadata tags we are telling Atlas the context for that page to match against other content. You can find out a lot more detail on this point here: How metadata tagging determines where content is displayed in Atlas

However the main thing to understand is that by default, all the In Focus web parts on a given page will look at both the tags directly applied to the page and the children of those tags, even though the children are not specifically tagged against the page.

So by tagging Dispute against the page, we will also include Contracts, Service Orders etc.

Behaviour of restricting tags in the In Focus configuration

If you are an advanced user of Atlas, you are probably aware that you can also apply specific tagging restrictions to individual web parts rather than (or in combination with) tagging the page and applying the restriction to all web parts on the page. You can find out more here: Refinement Filters configuration for In Focus web parts

The difference then, is that when applying a restriction at web part level, the children of the chosen tags are not included, only the value(s) that are specified directly.

So by tagging Dispute as a restriction within the In Focus web part you will only return content specifically tagged with Dispute, not content tagged with Contract, etc.