Basic Sorting

Quick reference

• 00:04 In this video we're gonna look at the basic sorting of row and
• 00:07 column headers in a pivot table.
• 00:10 You'll notice I've got a very simple pivot showing here.
• 00:13 It's got weeks across the top, and it's got sales dollars across the values area.
• 00:17 But it doesn't have any row labels on it whatsoever.
• 00:20 So, what I'm gonna do is,
• 00:21 I'm gonna drag class onto the pivot table, and you'll notice that
• 00:25 by default it actually automatically sorts in alphabetical order from top to bottom.
• 00:29 So we start with alcohol and then go with food.
• 00:32 And likewise, if I pull category on, it'll subcategorize it by alcohol and food, and
• 00:37 again it's sorted in alphabetical order.
• 00:40 Well, what if I wanted to change that?
• 00:42 What if I wanted food above alcohol?
• 00:44 Well i can click on alcohol, right click on it, sort, and I can sort from Zed to A.
• 00:51 And that will flip these two things around.
• 00:53 But notice that it didn't change the alphabetical order inside these
• 00:57 subcategories.
• 00:59 What if I wanted to do that?
• 01:00 Instead of clicking on food, I'll click on one of the items inside the subcategory.
• 01:06 Right click, sort, set to A.
• 01:09 And you'll notice that it changes both of them.
• 01:11 The sorting doesn't apply to just a subgroup.
• 01:14 It applies to all subgroups of that level.
• 01:16 So, I'm sorting the category field or
• 01:19 the class field, and that's gonna go throughout the pivot table.
• 01:23 Now, I can do the same thing on column headers.
• 01:26 Right click, sort from largest to smallest.
• 01:31 We'll flip it around so it goes from left to right.
• 01:34 Okay? Now, what if I did want alcohol up here
• 01:37 and I wanted something in a little bit weirder order?
• 01:39 Maybe I wanted draft beer above wine.
• 01:42 Well, if I click on that label I can actually move to the top of the box,
• 01:47 and that cursor changes into this four pointed arrow.
• 01:50 And if I left click and drag, you'll notice that
• 01:53 I get a bar that will allow me to drag and drop it into a custom order.
• 01:57 So now it's not in any alphabetical order whatsoever.
• 02:00 The interesting thing about this, though,
• 02:02 is that this actually changes to a manual sort.
• 02:05 So now when I update the pivot table, this will not re-sort on me here.
• 02:08 The food and the alcohol will always sort into alphabetical order, so
• 02:11 if I added it with a new category that was called, I don't know, beverage or
• 02:16 non alc, it would sort non alc, then food,
• 02:19 then alcohol because I've asked for it descending order.
• 02:21 But it wouldn't change the sort order for anything in the middle here.
• 02:25 So what if I wanna restore that?
• 02:27 Well, what I'm gonna do is right click on this level, because I sorted categories.
• 02:31 Go to sort, more sort options, and that takes me into this
• 02:36 sort category box, category being the filter that I'm actually working with.
• 02:40 And at this point I can restore it.
• 02:43 I can say, you know what, I want to sort this by ascending order or
• 02:46 descending order.
• 02:46 We'll go with ascending, and say okay, it's no longer on manual.
• 02:50 So now when I refresh my pivot tables it will re-sort.
• 02:54 That setting though, is maintained.
• 02:56 That was the category one.
• 02:57 If I wanted to check the class, I would have to go back in there and
• 03:00 do that one separately.
• 03:01 The same is true for the row headings.
• 03:03 So, that's pretty much your options for sorting your row headings and your column
• 03:08 headings is basically ascending, descending or manual, and how to reset it
• 03:12 if you put it into manual mode and need to get it back into automatic mode.

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