Automatic sorting

Kenneth Walker

After two years this is still not incorporated into the product. Disappointing ...

Tim Palmer

Reason #57 I will recommending that my company drop Smarsheet for a better tool. Smartsheet is totally unresponsive too even the simplest needs of their customers.

Matt Trala

Without having automatic sorting we are now being forced to add in new rows at the top of the Smartsheet due to our sheet becoming so full of data over time, this creates an issue because SmartSheets is not truly "live" so we now have to make sure all editors are aware of when new rows are added to avoid information being lost or overwritten. If we could just have a start date column that autosorted to the top we would be able to manage this a lot more effectively. It would be even better if active changes were live edits similar to how Excel handles the live sheets data.

Adam Rosenthal

Completely agree re: auto sorting on a date field. How hard can it be to add this function? I created a sheet with a form where we collect new “event” requests that have start and end dates. Obviously these dates are all over the place and the start date needs to show up in order for any type of ease of use. I end up sorting manually pretty much every day.

Please get this function in there!

mproudfit

I agree. I just came across a need for this function as well. Disappointing to see it's been hotly requested for 3-4 years with no current plans for implementation.

Tehren

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/68876#Comment_68876

We do the same thing. While we have a report which shows approved PTO of the current and next week, the raw sheet is extensive and into the future, but all over the place. It would be very helpful to have it auto-sort as without it, the raw sheet is useless as a view. I shouldn't need to create a report and use multiple additional button clicks to go from one to the other when the sorting function could eliminate the hassle. Live view a la Microsoft Loop would be awesome as well. We actively track meetings with multi-input on the same sheet at once and not having a live tracking option is a pain in the neck. Microsoft Loop is looking promising if it gains a bit of PM tools.

Armin Szyda

Hi Everyone,

There is a workaround by using Smartsheet API.

1. Generate API Token on Profile settings
2. Get Column ID out of response from calling https://smartsheet-platform.github.io/api-docs/#get-sheet
3. Execute sort call by providing Column ID, Sheet ID and API Token https://smartsheet-platform.github.io/api-docs/#sort-rows-in-sheet
4. Automate action by having a scheduled task to run the API call against specified file (like Linux with crontab)

Its not easy and very inconvenient but works.

Sally Wico

Putting in my vote for moving automatic sorting to the top of the developer's list (looks like it's been requested since 2018?) My situation: Employees use a form to submit PTO requests. Automation is used to send an employee a detailed summary of their PTO dates requested when a new event is captured, including days remaining after each request submission (by row).

Unfortunately, without automatic sorting, the data table sent to them is not in "date order", so the chronological countdown is not logical - makes people think the automation is erroneous.

Reports are not logical because 1) automation is not available when a trigger event happens (new PTO request submitted), and 2) over 400 employees - cannot set up individual reports for each one.

Haley S

I am extremely disappointed to see this functionality has not been added after 5 years of the need being identified. This is a basic functionality request and although I've submitted another enhancement request through the form, I fear it will never be implemented based on this and many other unresolved chat threads.

My business case: since you cannot include children in a filter (another issue), I need my sheet sorted so all rows of the same functional area are grouped. That way children rows can be viewed with their parent. A report will not work for us, as many others in this thread have noted, as there is no reason to add another link/view to the never-ending list of links to keep track of when the sheet view should be able to handle this capability just fine. So far Smartsheet has been great for us, but this is a MAJOR pain point for everyone involved.

Smartsheet - do better and listen to your users!!

Taylor B

Came here looking for the same resolution as everyone else. It's tough to read comments from other users FROM 2018 who have been requesting this update.

Christiana Shields

Adding my vote for the addition of a sorting automation and/or saved sort option. This is clearly something many people could really use. I would love to see this as a feature!

SSFeatures

Hi @Taylor B and @Christiana Shields,

I created a browser extension that adds automatic sorting into SmartSheet. You can can click here to download the browser extension.

Then click "Sort Rows":

Then click "Sort Automatically":

Then the browser extension will automatically sort whenever the data changes. The browser extension also saves your sort settings, so that you don't need to manually re-enter them.

Also, this automatic sorting works with filters. So if you enable automatic sorting, and then add a filter, the extension will automatically sort the data even with a filter enabled.

I hope this solves the problem for you!