how to retain the user's last search options from selectmultiple components in VBCS Page

Summary:

When a user selects their preferred options and clicks "Search," data is displayed in a table. I want to save these filter selections so that the next time the user opens this same screen, their previous search criteria are automatically loaded.
I tried retaining with persisted variable but its not retaining user preference. I tried with selectmultiple component value variable type as any and array as well but user preference is not retained.

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