Filtering with filter views in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

Employee data with Name, Department, and Salary columns.

Cell	Value
A1	Name
B1	Department
C1	Salary
A2	Alice
B2	Sales
C2	50000
A3	Bob
B3	Marketing
C3	55000
A4	Charlie
B4	Sales
C4	52000
A5	Diana
B5	HR
C5	48000
A6	Evan
B6	Marketing
C6	53000

Formula Trace

FILTER(A2:C6, B2:B6 = "Sales")

Step 1: B2:B6 = "Sales"

Step 2: FILTER(A2:C6, [TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE])

Cell Reference Map

    A       B          C
1 |Name   |Department|Salary
2 |Alice  |Sales     |50000
3 |Bob    |Marketing |55000
4 |Charlie|Sales     |52000
5 |Diana  |HR        |48000
6 |Evan   |Marketing |53000

Filter uses B2:B6 to check 'Sales' and returns matching rows from A2:C6.

The formula uses the Department column B2:B6 to filter rows from A2:C6 where Department is 'Sales'.

Result

Filtered Result:
Name    Department  Salary
Alice   Sales       50000
Charlie Sales       52000

The filter shows only employees in the Sales department with their full row data.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the condition B2:B6 = "Sales" return?

A [TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE]

B [FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE]

C [TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE]

D [FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE]

Key Result

FILTER(range, condition) returns rows from range where condition is TRUE.