# Search and filter
### Overview
Our search and filter panel offers a very powerful way to:
* Create shareable views of a particular story map
* Condense a large story map into something more manageable without archiving or deleting data
* Search for journeys, steps or stories
### Search and filter panel
From the toolbar, click on the magnifying glass, or use the keyboard shortcut `F`.
The filter panel is broken down into three sections:
* Backbone — select which journeys and steps are included in the view
* Release — select which releases are included in the view
* Stories — filter the resulting stories to your liking
Let's take a closer look at each section.
### Backbone
When you deselect a journey or a step, it will be completely hidden from view. This allows you to quickly trim down a story map to the relevant journeys or steps for the view you are creating. In the above example, **Search for a place to stay** and **Browse listings** would not be visible in the view.
Any journeys or steps added whilst the story map is filtered will be automatically added to the filter.
### Releases
The release filter works very similarly to the backbone filter. In the above example, only **MVP — Bookings** and **Ratings & Reviews** would be visible.
Any releases added whilst the story map is filtered will be automatically added to the filter.
### Stories
The stories filter allows you to trim down the resulting visible stories from your backbone and release filter. Crucially, you can choose to **dim** or **hide** the stories.
### How to tell the story map is filtered
When your story map is filtered, you will see a badge in the bottom left-hand corner.
### Sharing a filtered view
Once you create a filtered view of the story map, you can copy the URL and share it with your team and they will also see the same filtered view. In the future, we are hoping to make this more user-friendly and resilient 🙂.
Remember that any changes made to the filtered view require you to re-share the URL with your team mates. The following events will change the filter:
* Adding a new journey, step, story or release
* Changing elements of the filter from the search and filter panel
### Can I add still use the story map when it's filtered?
Yes! The story map is fully functional whilst a filter is present. You can add new cards and even use the drag-and-drop system as normal.
Be aware that if you have a filter that is set to hide stories and a new story is created that falls outside of the filtering criteria, you will see the following message in the search and filter panel.
### Example use-cases
We're sure you're going to come up with some amazing ways to use this feature, but here are a few ideas that might inspire you. Create a filter that:
* **Only shows the unplanned release**. This is your entire unplanned product backlog and scope. Analyse this for very long columns, which denotes lots of features. This signifies a potential risk area, based on the step in the user's journey.
* **Shows all releases apart from unplanned**. This is all the stuff you have confidence in and are planning on building. Removing unplanned work keeps the view focused.
* **Shows a single journey**. Useful to share with stakeholders that only have an interest in a single part of the system and don't need to be overwhelmed with everything else.
* **Map your current state of play** (already built features) and tag these stories as **current**. Then map where you want to go in the future and create a filter for stories with the **current** tag. You now have a simple way to view a visualization of the current state of play vs the future.
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