I have stored a value in tab module settings called GroupFilter.  It is saving that data per module just fine in the tabmodulesettings table.   Now i want to filter my dataview by that groupfilter field when it is not null.   I want it to filter the Groups colum with a like wildcard so (like "*" &  @groups & "*" Sadly i seem to lack the language i need to do that.  It keeps trying to return the value of the field as the name of the column.  Here is what i have so far. 

I will mess with an if statement later once i get the primary filter working.   I noticed announcements module uses a setting field to filter data but the source code on it didnt come with VB.   Any other samples out there i might be able to reference? 

Dim Groups As String
Groups =CType(Settings("GroupFilter"),String)

I set up my controller, dataprovider and sqldataprovider, and localstoredproceedures to pass the Groups string through the system and then filter groups by like "*" & @groups & "*"  but it keeps saying newsletter (which is my sample filter value) is an invalid column.  I am betting this dim statement is wrong but i just dont know how to pass the GroupFilter value out of the settings tables to the groups value as a filter.  

here is the vb in my load settings on the dataview page