Dear Mynda,
Unless I'm missing something, it is not possible to manually sort data in PowerBi as one can do with pivot tables in excel. I have googled the topic and it seems one has to create sort tables with a helper column with the order number and then sort by that column. This is fine with simple data like month sort but I have data with different Demographic groups in one column, like Age Group, Gender, LSM, Income etc, then the other column is Demographic relating to the Groups, like Age 4-6, Age 7-11 etc and LSM 1, LSM 2 etc up to 10. (The LSM 10 in the chart ends up after LSM 1 and the ages are not sorted in ascending order). The income groups are also not displayed in the correct order. The main reason is that the data contains both text and numbers.
I'm not sure if creating sort tables will work in this case, do you have any suggestions?
Thanks Tracy.
I have attached a view of the charts.
Hi Tracy,
Correct, Power BI matrix tables don't have the left click and drag manual sorting functionality we have with Excel PivotTables. If you want to sort contrary to alpha-numeric rules then you need to add the sort order to the data table and set it as the 'Sort by' column.
Mynda
Thanks Mynda,
Any possibility this could be raised as a suggestion to PowerBI. I'm not a subscriber to the service yet.
Having to create many sort tables just adds more time taken to building these reports, and I'm not even sure that this will work in the example provided above.
Thanks.
Tracy
Hi Tracy,
You can post suggestions for product improvements on Power BI's user voice platform. Anyone can post suggestions, they're not restricted to those with Pro licences etc.
First check that your suggestion hasn't already been raised by doing a search on the topic. If it's already there then you can vote for it. Microsoft prioritise features based on votes, so it's well worth your while.
Mynda
Hi Mynda,
Thanks I will certainly do so.
PS. The sort table actually did work, so happy for now.
Thanks
Tracy.
