The Quick Sort wizard is a pop-up dialog that you can use to edit your Sort details in a discovery. Sorting allows you to choose the order in which data and items are presented. This Quick Sort wizard offers a core set of sort functions that are easy to navigate.
For more extensive features, consider using the Advanced Sort panel, or for a context-driven point-and-click menu option, consider Quick sorting.
Note: The Quick Sort wizard is available from both Discover Pro and Discover Lite. It is also available in presentations at runtime and any embedded discovery or presentation. Note that this includes Discover Lite when opened using Analyze Further.
Quick Sort wizard
Opening the Quick Sort wizard
When you right-click white space in your visual, you can open Sort Wizard from the Query Operations menu:
Note: This option is directly alongside Sort, which opens the Advanced Sort panel.
When you right-click a member in your visual, the same option can be selected beneath Quick Sort:
Defining your Sort
Tabs
The tabs along the top of the dialog (blue highlight above) are used to indicate where to sort. The available tabs represent the drop zones on the visual. They are only enabled where those drop zones contain members that can be sorted. Selecting them indicates that your Sort applies to all the chips in the given drop zone.
Add Sort Criteria
When you select a tab, you are offered an Add Sort option in the center of the page:
- Click this option to add a single sort criterion for the chips in your selected tab.
- Click the Add button (green arrow) to add another criterion. Repeat as required.
Tip: You can change the sequence of your sorts using the drag handle (orange arrow), and delete unwanted items using the Delete icon alongside each.
Sort by Hierarchy
For each sort:
- Select a Hierarchy from the drop-down to sort the chips in the selected drop zone by label of the selected hierarchy.
- Select Ascending or Descending from the next drop-down to indicate whether the labels should be sorted in alphabetical or reverse-alphabetical order.
Sort by Measure
For each sort:
- Select a Measure to sort the chips in the selected drop zone by the value of the selected measure.
- Optionally, filter the sort by another hierarchy. For example, the preceding image shows a sort that is driven by Expenses, your sort can either target the values for Expenses in all years (by selecting None), or by Expenses in a specific year (by selecting a year from the drop-down).
- Select Ascending or Descending from the last drop-down to set up the sort direction by numeric value.
Nested Sort
This checkbox (purple arrow) dictates the relationship between the chips in your selected drop zone (represented by the selected tab):
- Selecting the Nested Sort checkbox treats the chips in the selected drop zone as if they are "indented" within one another. This means that the sort is applied to the first chip in the drop zone, then within that to the second chip, and so on. For example, if your Rows contain Teams and Venues chips and you select Rows; first, the Teams are sorted by the criteria and then Venues are sorted within the teams. In a Grid, this means that each Team appears only once and contains its own (sorted) Venues.
- Clearing (deselecting) the Nested Sort checkbox treats the chips in the selected drop zone as if they are combined. For example, if your Rows contain Teams and Venues chips and you select Rows, the sort is applied to the two chips in the drop zone as if they were a Team-Venue pair; if we had Teams 1, 2, and 3 and two Venues, Home and Away, we would see the sort apply to pairs 1-Home, 1-Away, 2-Home, 2-Away, 3-Home, 3-Away with the sequence reflecting the sorting applied to the pairs. In a Grid, this means that each Team may appear multiple times if, say, the sort is on points and most Teams gain more points at home.
Note: This option indents each chip in the drop zone in relation to the previous chip. Meaning that a drop zone with three chips will sort first on chip 1, then chip 2 (within chip 1), then chip 3 (within chip 2). You could not use this functionality to sort first on chip 1, then on chips 2 and 3 as if they were a pair, you would need to use the Advanced Sort panel in Discover Pro and select chips and not drop zones to do that.
Dialog Buttons
At the bottom of the dialog are the following buttons:
- Preview: Update the visual with the current sort criteria and do not close the Quick Sort wizard. The sort is only temporarily applied while the dialog is open.
- Apply: Click this button once you are happy with your Sort and you want to apply it to your visual and close the Quick Sort wizard.
- Close: Close the dialog and discard your current Sort details.
Wizard / Panel Interactivity
In Discover Pro, you can update your Sort details either in the Quick Sort wizard or in the Advanced Sort panel. Since the Quick Sort wizard provides a sub-set of the Advanced Sort panel functionality, it is worth considering the impact of using both views:
- If you create a Sort using the Quick Sort wizard or Quick Sort content menus, you can open and edit it in the Advanced Sort panel.
- If you create a Sort using the Advanced Sort panel and it can be shown in the Quick Sort wizard (it only has drop zone targets, hierarchy label and measure value sorting, and nesting), you can open and edit it in the Quick Sort wizard.
- If you edit a Sort using the Quick Sort wizard, any details that were previously captured in the Advanced Sort panel will be overwritten by your changes on Apply. This means that any sorts that cannot be shown in the wizard will be deleted. (A note to this effect is displayed alongside the buttons to warn you that this delete may occur.)