How are filter options ordered?

PhilTeare · 10-12-2022 04:31 AM

Does anyone know how the options in the automatic filters are ordered, or how to control that?

The automatic filters are a great feature, but if you look at this image you can see that if I can order them that would really help my users.

FYI it's running of a SQL database, so i can make any edits I need there too if there's a work around anyone know of?

Many thanks, Phil.

WillowMobileSys

There is no way to control the order. Playing with this in a test app, it appears the order is set based on the order of the columns in the AppSheet table.

PhilTeare

Apologies @WillowMobileSys , I don't think I was clear enough in my post. The issue is when I open a filter on a ref column.

I have a table of Projects. Each project has a column StatusId, which is the foreign key for the Status table.

When I want to filter my projects by status, I see all the statuses, but in a random order.

I cannot even figure out the pattern - it doesn't seem to match the order of any of the cols in Status table - not StatusId, Name, even date created. It seems arbitrary but it is always the same so something's controlling it.

After lots of google I suspect now that it's not possible, but just wanted to see if there are any workarounds?

Thanks

WillowMobileSys

Ok, I am with you now.

The way the filter items are populated is based on the Ref column of the source table you are trying to filter. They must appear in the source table column. Then a unique list of filter choices is created in the order they appeared in that source table's/slice raw data. Sorting on the view does not have any impact, unfortunately.

PhilTeare

ah magic, I follow.

So - I could order the view by "StatusId", then my filter would be ordered. But, alas, this is a map view, and there's no OrderBy Option.

But of any others, I could do it that way. thanks for your help.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

@PhilTeare wrote:
cannot even figure out the pattern - it doesn't seem to match the order of any of the cols in Status table -

It sounds that the order of status field will show in the order in which the Status column is populated in the Projects table. So you may want to check that Status empty ( meaning no status entered) is first 11. Commissioned is populated second in the Projects table records followed by 9. Client Accepted Final design followed by 1. New and so on.

However , I believe currently there is no way to control that order.

Steve

@Suvrutt_Gurjar wrote:
I believe currently there is no way to control that order.

Correct.