# Filtering for referenced fields in tables
**URL:** https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397
**Category:** How do I?
**Created:** [July 6, 2023, 1:02am UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397 "2023-07-06T01:02:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sleeusis](https://community.weweb.io/u/sleeusis)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2023, 1:02am UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397/1 "2023-07-06T01:02:31Z")
Hi, can referenced fields like **newfieldname: table (nameofthefield)** be referenced as text to be used in filters for condition such as “contain”. It seems that the referenced field is returned as an object even when is a text and the only options are ‘Is exactly’, ‘Is Empty’ and ‘Is not Empty’.
Any thought?
Thank you
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### Author:  [@Joyce](https://community.weweb.io/u/Joyce)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2023, 8:48am UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397/2 "2023-07-06T08:48:01Z")
Hi @sleeusis 👋
You should be able to yes. Here’s what a filter at collection level could look like for example:
You have the same filters at page level:
Can you share a bit more information about your project?
Maybe a couple of screenshots to help us see what the data you’re trying to filter looks like and where you’re trying to filter it (at collection level, on a page, using the filter dropdown or a filterByKey formula for example)
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### Author:  [@sleeusis](https://community.weweb.io/u/sleeusis)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2023, 1:13pm UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397/4 "2023-07-06T13:13:33Z")
Hi @Joyce - I’m using supabase and for the collection I have a table called _events_ with a reference field to a record in a table called _sites_. As on the screenshot below, I have a _Site\_Address:Site (Address)_ and I want to be able to filter for a condition containing a substring of the address but it seems the referenced values from the fields are returned as objects _{}_ and the option is not there in the filter.
Thank you
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### Author:  [@Joyce](https://community.weweb.io/u/Joyce)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397/5 "2023-07-06T16:36:40Z")
Ah ok got it!
So yeah, when you use the Advanced mode, Supabase returns an object which we indeed cannot filter on in depth at the moment. It’s a limitation of the plugin we’re aware of but not quite sure how to improve yet.
For now you have 2 solutions:
1. create a view in Supabase where the address is a field, then fetch that view in WeWeb, and filter on that collection, or
2. create 2 collections in WeWeb: one for your events table and one for your site table. Then, you can filter your events collection based on the id of the address in the site collection. Here’s a [short video](https://tella.video/supabase-filtering-ref-fields-c5kv) on how you would do this.
Does that help?
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### Author:  [@sleeusis](https://community.weweb.io/u/sleeusis)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2023, 5:18pm UTC](https://community.weweb.io/t/filtering-for-referenced-fields-in-tables/3397/6 "2023-07-06T17:18:20Z")
@Joyce - Yeah, I created a view in supabase before to circumvent this but I lost the realtime capability. I will try with your second suggestion. As always, thank you!