What is this 'filter by template' at all? I did some google search, bot got nothing useful!

There is a filtering option for pivot table, but it looks like this is not you are after at?

I myself use pivot tables seldom - mostly I only give help when some user has problem with them. Usually adding a calculated column into original table is enough.

For graphs I prefer report sheets with data validation lists to set up conditions, or I create a ODBC query which returns a table for graph (again, I use data validation lists for selecting query parameters, and the query is set to automatic refresh when any parameter is changed).