Idea Summary
When you now apply a filter or some highlighting on a Interactive grid (IG) and Interactive Report (IR)
, there will appear a control panel below the search bar and above the data.

This looks really ugly and is not so UI friendly, because the data is pushed lower.
Especially when it is expanded:

For the user the data is the most important part.

So my suggestion is: 
Place a button on the search bar (after the actions button) :

That opens a popup with the settings of the filters/highlighting/etc…

Use Case
This should be applied for the Interactive Reports and Interactive Grids  

Alternative Solution
Currently it is possible to move the control panel after the action bar using some javascript (page on load + after refresh report DA)
$(".a-IRR-controlGroup--options").append($("#myIRstaticID_control_panel"));

and some css:
#myIRstaticID_control_panel {
display: inline-block;
padding-top: 0;
}

And expanded

But one button for all the settings looks better in combination with a popup