When you add data to your report, the results are displayed in the original order of the defining attribute. The order is usually alphabetical, by date, or the specified order of an ordered set (see Creating sets).
This article contains the following sections:
Sorting results using result manipulation
You can edit how your results are sorted in the Sort section of the result
manipulation menu (
). The following are the available sorting options:
- Alphabetical: A-Z or Z-A.
- Numeric: Value ascending (low to high) or Value descending (high to low).
- Advanced
The Advanced option enables you to set the following parameters:
- Sort on metric selects a specific metric to sort by.
- In the order selects whether the metric is ordered by ascending or descending results.
- On calculates the sorting on Rows, Columns, or a selected attribute.
- Aggregate values sorts based on the total of results, not the first result. This option is useful for metrics that are split out over time.
- Sort totals includes totals/subtotals in the sort.
Sorting results in tables
When you generate your report as a table (see Working with tables), you can sort your results by clicking the table header of any metric you added to the report. Clicking the table header of a metric sorts in the following order:
- On the first click, the column is sorted in ascending order for that metric.
- On the second click, the column is sorted in descending order for that metric.
- On the third click, the column returns to the original sort order.
25 Comments
Has anyone figured out how to remove the Sort once it has been applied? thank you.
@... Found a way. Add an unnecessary metric and then sort by that new metric. Save the query, go back and then remove the unnecessary metric. You've successfully dodged Explore :)
I was also just (luckily) able to sort the results the way I did by just renaming the labels in my custom attribute. Before I did that, after sorting the chart by attribute, I had the 48+ appearing as the first column but in terms of the series (as you can see), that didn't fit the purse. So, I just prefixed it with an alphabetic value to make it "Above 48 hrs" and then sorted it in descending order. Bingo!
Note that I had to increase the Truncation characters limit to expose the entire string :)
Hi,
I'm trying to sort a table based first on Column C and then on Column B. How would I go about trying to do this? I'm only able to sort by one column at a time.
Thanks!
Hi Samantha,
You'll be able to sort the values in the table based on metric results and then by a selected attribute via the Advanced sorting option. But, if you are trying to sort the results based on two different metric columns, then I'm afraid that is not possible. Sorry about this, Samantha. You may only be able to sort the values based on one metric at a time.
Thanks!
I was wondering if there was any way to sort my results by Ticket ID or date created?
Seems like the only sorting option I have is to sort the "COUNT(Tickets)" but never anything else.
I am trying to order these by descending whether its the date they were created or the Ticket ID itself but nothing seems to work. Is there a work around for this? I can't really do anything from the "Sort" section since there really isn't much that this is counting.
Quick little update for everyone. I was able to work around the date issue with a metric that adds the days since the ticket was created.
Then sorting that by "descending"
Hope this helps someone!
HOW TO GET BACK YOUR DEFAULT SORT!!!
For those like me that ran into problems with removing a sort so that it would go back to the original order, here's what someone at Zendesk found out for me (although I still can't find it documented anywhere). The first click on a metric column sorts it ascending, the second click changes to descending, AND THE THIRD CLICK REMOVES THE SORT COMPLETELY!! Now to document it for my agents so they know this as well.
Who knew?
Hi Virginia Goggins, thanks so much for this great feedback. I've added this to the article above and I hope others find it useful. We really appreciate your input!
Thank you @...!
I have so far been unsuccessful at trying to remove sorting. I accidentally selected a metric, because it makes it look like you're supposed to pick one. But I didn't want to sort on a metric, I only wanted to sort on an attribute. But now I'm stuck with both a metric and an attribute selected, and can't deselect the metric.
This UI is riddled with problems. Explore has sucked up an absurd amount of my 2021. So far my experience with Explore is by far the worst I've had with any Zendesk product, and one of the worst SaaS products I've ever used.
Hi Zach,
Reading through comments from this article, it appears here that there's an option for us to remove the sort if it has been applied already and the workaround is also documented on the article too. Clicking the table header of metric sorts in the following order:
Best Regards,
Darenne Carbajosa
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Hello there,
Can someone help me with sorting this query from Sunday-Saturday (specifically at the dashboard level)?
It looks how I want it to at the query level: https://www.dropbox.com/s/98t9jktil3dbbwl/Screen%20Shot%202021-07-13%20at%203.30.25%20PM.png?dl=0
However, when I move it onto my dashboard is switches the sort to look like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh2zkut43qjt24q/Screen%20Shot%202021-07-13%20at%203.33.43%20PM.png?dl=0
Does anyone know why it is switching the sort and how I can maintain the sort from the query from the query builder to the dashboard? Thank you.
Hi @..., the only thing that I can recall could cause this is that the dashboard changes haven't yet been published. So, you'd have made changes to the underlying query but perhaps try and save it again and then when you're back to the dashboard, publish and refresh your browser to see if the changes stick.
I am created a calculated attribute where the age of users is grouped based on age group which say for example is 20-30, 30-40 etch which is named as days of the week. How do I sort the chart to get the days from Monday to Sunday. I have tried all sort of sorting and no help.
I will create a ticket with you to go over your specific example.
I'm still not understanding, with the setup shown in my screenshot, how do I sort by Ticket Created - Month? This shouldn't be this hard...
Hi Jake Warren, based on the numbers in your screenshot, it looks like a "value ascending" sort might already be applied on the Ticket Count column. Try clicking the header of that column once or twice to return the sort to its default order (see Sorting results in tables), which should sort the months in calendar order.
Hey Erin O'Callaghan,
You'd think that, but when I try to toggle through the different sorting of that column to make sure it's not sorting ascending/descending, I'm never able to get what I need (sorting by Ticket Created - Month). See below screenshots for descending, then ascending, followed by no sorting on that column at all (which shows the same sorting as ascending).
We have created a ticket for you and one of our members from Advocacy will reach out to you via email to further discuss your inquiry with regard to sorting results
Is there a way to sort columns by reverse chronological order? I have a table with a column for each week, but want to display the most recent weeks first. I'm not seeing a readily-available way to do that.
See screenshot: I want to reverse the weeks so that most recent comes first.
Cheeny Aban can you post a public reply to Jake's problem? I too have unsorted metrics columns but cannot find any way to induce Explore to sort by my date column.
Hi Bobby Watton
One way of sorting your metrics is by using Result Path Calculations, for reference: Using result path calculations. For example:
Although I understand it can be a case-to-case basis depending on the report you are working on, so if you'd like it to be more precise, I suggest reaching out to one of the contact options here, Zendesk Customer Support. Our Explore experts will be more than happy to assist you!
I hope this helps!
I click to sort but all that happens is the column header editor comes up where I can change the name of the header. It doesn't sort. Help.
Hello Colin,
Based on the behavior you mentioned, you must be clicking the name of an attribute in the header instead of a metric. As mentioned in this article:
You may want to look into the available sorting options from the result manipulation menu.
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