Sorting an Indexed Date

PL123

I am pulling a date into my dashboard using an index and Match formula. When I go to sort the data, it sorts the date from left to right so 1/2/23 is before 1/3/22. I thought I might need helper columns to break the date out into month, day and year columns and sort on year then month then day. I get invalid data error when I do that. I assume it is reading it as text even though the column is date only. What can I do to either bring them in as dates or convert them to something I can sort?

Paul Newcome

You are going to need to go back to the source data. It sounds like the source data is a text value. Making sure those are actual dates stored in a date type column should fix the issue.

PL123

I think that once data is pulled from the source and it is twice removed, it becomes text. I have individual schedules on separate smartsheets. Then I have a sheet that consolidates all of that. If I then pull that data to another sheet, it becomes text. So I have create a copy of the second sheet and reduced it to the data I need and added the data I produce to that sheet.

Paul Newcome

@PL123 It depends on how exactly you are pulling the data. I have pulled data across numerous sheets and still maintained the data type.