Automatically Sort Rows in Sheets

keats76

+1 ... it's so hard to upvote topics properly. This item has MANY thread over the last decade. It took quite a bit of Googling to land here and upvote this request. I'm not even sure if this is the right place to upvote. This is core functionality that has existed in Excel since the dawn of time. We expect it to be here. At my previous company we went with Monday.com and this was one of the reasons why. At my present company I find myself using Smartsheet again. There is much to like about the tool, but the lack of listening to your customers and implementing a basic, core need like this is leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

You WILL lose customers over this. Please listen. Please add it to a future sprint. We shouldn't have to create automated tasks that run curl requests via your API to dance around the limitations. If it can be done via the API, it should be available via the standard UI, right?

TomG

Hi @keats76 and @Cleversheet, I took Serena up on her offer and booked some time to walk through and discuss the additional sorting capabilities my organization would like to see. I would encourage you both along with anyone else to do the same. It was a well spent 30 minutes and I know they would like to hear more details from us as a user community related to this feature.

Cleversheet

@Serena Batten, I had been tempted to book a time with you but hadn’t regarded your invitation to @TomG as wide open for anybody to follow up.

Please let me know if you’d find it useful to hear a case for saved sorts. That’s only a subset of the sorting issues addressed in this thread, and you may already be fully cognizant of the potential value in that feature, so I’m content to presume the latter unless you indicate you’d like to explore further.

Genevieve P.

Hi all,

Apologies to everyone who received duplicate notifications on this post. In merging a new idea to the thread (to increase the vote count instead of having multiple, separate ideas on the same subject) I inadvertently merged the original post onto the new one, instead of the other way around.

The Status - On Roadmap - is the same, and we would still love to hear your feedback around how this feature would work best for you.

Thank you!

Genevieve

Patrick Pilvines

Please also ensure this feature works in card view! Often our users have to manual sort and search through cards to find things past due or other information (risk, etc.)

Having ability to sort rows in cards is just as important!

MATF12

I think most people have mentioned it already, what type of sort they want. But anything that sorts and is automatically running would help. It could be even something like the filter options if automatic is too complex, where you can have sets of sorting setups and people can click and leave on.

Cleversheet

I've never understood the rationale for sorting in Card view, then looking at the Sheet and finding the row positions unchanged. The disconnect between the views is annoying to me. Card view is great at visualizing and facilitating the movement of elements within and among lanes, and I wish changes made there would “stick” when I want to see the results of those decisions in a more condensed manner by looking at the Sheet.

Chinaflor

So on my sheet, I have a column that has three drop down options and higher on this sheet I have three drop down rows that correspond with the three drop down options . When I am on a certain row and when I toggle one of the three options there should be a way for that row to move higher on the same sheet onto one of the three rows. It would be really useful and save time!

Thank y'all (:

Matt3535

Logging in another request for a persistent sort function based on column values. We would like to lock in the sort action so it is the default view regardless of new entries.

Erik Falcon

We are a public transit authority. Trip requests can come in up to one week in advance of the trip. The day of the trip, our dispatchers need to focus on delivering those trips. Having today's trip requests sorted by date first, then route #, and then pick-up time will allow priority to go to the next trip. For scheduling purposes, having the sheet sort by date, then route, then pick up time will allow dispatch to not over-schedule on a run. As new info is entered, all dispatch would have access to the most up to date info and not switch back and forth between the source sheet and a report.

Jake Gustafson

@Erik Falcon would creating a Report and applying the various sort options work for your process? I know I've got various sheets that I prefer end users not to go into because of how bulky they are (lots of columns). I try to set up Reports that only have what they need. Might be an option to consider. I'm still a proponent of having the auto sort option on Sheets but figured that might be a workaround to look into to alleviate some immediate struggles.

Erik Falcon

Thanks @Jake Gustafson. We use a report to send out to the end users. However, our schedulers have to re-sort prior to entering new info into the source sheet. Hoping to find a solution for that.

Jake Gustafson

@Erik Falcon would an input form work to submit the new requests? They get added to the bottom of your main sheet and the Report reflects the real-time changes sorting by the applicable date. I'm still on board with the auto sort and would benefit from that functionality as well but trying to think of ways to improve your current state (assuming it'll be a while before any software changes occur to benefit your process).

Erik Falcon

@Jake Gustafson A form would not help because we are limited in how many rides we can provide per hour. Staff need to see the list in chronological order to see if a new trip fits. Thanks for continuing to make suggestions.

mjacques

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/368013#Comment_368013

Hi Serena, if you need more people for input please let me know willing to provide some insight as having to manually having to sort the rows each times a field is change instead of it actively doing it can become very cumbersome especially with others using shared sheets.