Sort table by date

[Egrofal]

Hi,

I am using Power Bi for my company, and have to create dashbord with several table sorted by date,

I got a date picker table and some other tables. And on these tables I would like to sort all my datas by date (ascending). For that I added a column date and sort the table by this column. But the problem is that I have ta add the date on all my tables, and it's not really usefull and would like to delete this column (but if I do that my table are not sort by date anymore). 

So my question is : Is-it possible to sort my table day the ascending date, even if I don't add this column in my tables ? 

Thanks for your help,

Valentin

[Egrofal]

no idea ?

[v-haibl-msft]

@Egrofal

If you want the cost column to be sorted by day column, you need to first select the cost column and then click “Sort By Column” - “date_days” as below.

Best Regards,

Herbert

[Egrofal]

Hi Herbert,

Thanks for your answer,

I tried but when I select the column "cost" then sort it by "date" I have a error message :

"We cannot sort the 'cost' column by 'date_day'. You can't have more than one value in 'date_day' for the same value in 'cost'. Choose a different column for sorting or update the data in 'date_day'.

[Greg_Deckler]

Yeah, I've seen that one and it can be frustrating. Perhaps if you create a new column with Date and a random timestamp you could get some unique values for sorting purposes. I think you would have to create that column in your Query however in Power Query "M" language as I do not believe that DAX has a RANDOM function.

[BhaveshPatel]

As you have shown in the screenshot, you can not sort this table by dates without adding the date column in your table or in other words, you have to have a date column in your table to sort your data by dates.

Hope this has clarified your understanding.

[Greg_Deckler]

You might be able to go into your data model and choose the Modeling tab and then set the "Sort By Column" for one of your other columns to be the Date column.

[Egrofal]

Still not work...
Apparently, the reason is that I have several same value on my colomn "cost"

[Greg_Deckler]

Oh yeah, nevermind, duh. The issue is that it wants a 1:1 relationship between the two columns. So, yeah, that was a dumb suggestion on my part. Hmm. Thinking...

[Egrofal]

Thanks to try 😉

In the worst case, if it's not possible to sort my table  by date without deleting my column date. 

Do you think that it would be possible to just hide this column (like on excel) in my table vizualisation ?

[Greg_Deckler]

You can *nearly* hide it. If it is in a table, you can hover your mouse over the column header edge and drag it to near nothingness.

[Egrofal]

Yes, I did that but it's not a really good solution... But thanks @Greg_Deckler

[Greg_Deckler]

Yeah, sorry; I agree, but I think you are stuck with it for now.

[Egrofal · Accepted solution]

So to help people who got the same problem, the best way to resolve it at the moment is to place the column on the right of the board, go to the focus mode and hide it on the left

On this way my table's tab looks like that :

 

So Date is hiden, (you just see a small part of the tab)

It's not perfect, but I don't have any idea to do better...

[Egrofal]

Thanks for your help, but I am not able to do this, like you can see on the following screenshot 

[Greg_Deckler]

You need to go into your data model (middle icon on left) and then select your table and then select your column and then Sort By Column should activate.

[Egrofal]

Yes, I also did this, but even like that when I delete the column "date" , the table is shorting by the "cost"

[Greg_Deckler]

Not sure, here is an example of a Value sorted by Date without Date in the visual, just Value sorted by Date.

[Egrofal]

Thanks OK, it seems working on your graph, but for me it's not.

Maybe, I did something wrong....

Here, some screeenshots :

My Data model sorted by day : 

My values of my report table : 

My report table with the date (so it's correctly sorted) : 

Then, I delete the column "date"

And my final report table (who is not sorted correctly anymore) : 

Anyway, thanks for your help, I appreciate 🙂

[BhaveshPatel]

Yes but you can only sort the individual visual and not the entire dataset. 

To do so, follow this steps,

1. Select the ellipses (...) in your visual and choose Sort by > Dates.

2. If necessary, select the sort icon  to change to Descending or Reverse for Ascending.

Thanks & Regards,

Bhavesh

[Egrofal]

Thanks for your answer, 

Ok but when I select the ellipses in my visual, I don't have the possibility to choose Sort By > Dates.

Like you can see on one of my table, when I am selecting the elipse, I can only choose : Export Data or Remove.

So I can't do your solution, 

To remind I want to have the table, sorted like on the screen shot but i don't want to keep the column "Day". But if I delete it, it's gonna be sorted by the second column "CPC"