Excel 2007 : Report Filter Multiple items/All items

Report Filters are just seen as a cleaner way of making overall changes to your PT output than toggling selected options in a Row/Column Label ...

For ex. you want to select just one option from a Field - rather than deselect all items and select the one you want as you would were it a Row/Column field you can just move this field to a Report Filter and click on the one item you want from the list provided... Report Filter & Column/Row label functionality is similar but not the same.

Pre 2007 Report Filters or Page Fields as they were known then were more traditionally a one-or-all type affair ie the Select Multiple Items option did not exist per se (or rather was more convoluted to put into practice via Hidden Items etc...)

I think Report Filters are useful and from a UI perspective I think their purpose is quite obvious for end-user (ie select option you want) whereas for some users altering item visibility on a Row/Column basis may not be quite so obvious.

My rule of thumb would be ... if a Field should be a one or All selection policy then it should be a Report Filter ... if you wish to be run a multiple selection then you should use Column/Row Labels.

I should have added... the other factor as to whether or not to use Report Filters or Row / Column Labels is of course the desired layout of the output.

Consider a source table with three fields

Region | Product | Sales

Whether or not Region should be a Report Filter or Row Label etc will depend on whether or not you wish to see Sales broken out by both Product AND Region or if in fact you wish to just see Sales by Product
(and where Sales can be restricted to a given region selection or selections)

The former layout would warrant Region as either a Row/Column Label whereas the latter would warrant Region be a Report Filter only thereby ensuring only one line per Product in the final PT table.