With sorting, you can rearrange your rows in Kanban and Sheet views based on one or more defined rules.
Sorting is another way to customize your view to your particular needs. With sorts, you can rearrange your rows to prioritize certain information in either Kanban or Sheet views, as sorts operate similarly in both view types.
This article features Spreadsheet.com's Alumni Directory template. Explore the Template Gallery to find ready-to-use templates in over 20 different categories, or learn more about starting a new workbook from a Spreadsheet.com template.
How to Create a Sort Rule
You can access a view's sorting rules by clicking the Sorts button in the view toolbar in a Kanban or Sheet view. Click the + New sort button at the bottom of the dropdown to define a new sorting rule.
In configuring a new sort, you can define the column by which the view will be sorted, as well as whether it will be sorted in ascending or descending
order or, in the case of a column with text, alphabetical
or reverse alphabetical
order.
Once you've configured your new sorting rule, click the blue Apply button in the lower right corner of the dropdown to apply the rule, and your view will automatically update to reflect the new sort.
To remove an existing sort, click the x-icon to the right of the sorting rule and then click Apply once again.
Applying and Ordering Multiple Sorts
Multiple sorting criteria can be applied to the same view at once, creating a multi-step criteria by which your view will be ordered. The order in which sorts are applied is reflected in the order by which they appear in the list of sorting rules. In the example below, the view will first be ordered by Graduation Year in descending order, and then sorted by Name in alphabetical order.
The resulting view looks like this:
You can reorder sorts by clicking and dragging on the drag handles to the left of each sorting rule. Once you've dragged and dropped the sorting rules into your preferred order, click Apply once again to update the view.
Columns do not automatically re-sort when you add, delete, or change data. To refresh the view, reapply the sort and your columns will account for the change.
Each additional sort acts as a sub-sort, sorting rows within the initial sort groups. In the example above, we've reordered our two sorts so that the view is first ordered by Name in alphabetical order, and then ordered by Graduation Year.
More Resources: Organizing Workbook Data
Learn more about Spreadsheet.com features that help you organize your workbook data with these resources:
- “Filtering and Row Visibility” – Learn how to hide rows from your View by applying filtering rules
- “Grouping Rows” – Learn how to automatically organize your View into groups of rows based on shared values in one or more columns
- "Moving Rows" – Learn how to manually reorder rows in your workbooks
- “Hiding and Moving Columns” – Learn how to hide columns from your current View