Scenario/Problem:
You want to specify how a view should sort the items. For example, in a
contacts list, you want it to sort on the Last Name column in ascending
order so that Adams is before Brahms. Furthermore, if two people have
the same last name, you want them sorted by their first names, so that
Anne Adams appears before Brenda Adams.
Solution:
SharePoint supports sorting based on up to two columns. To select the
sort order, scroll down to the Sort section of the view creation page
(see Figure 1).
FIGURE 1 Changing how items are sorted in a view.
Under First Sort by the Column, choose the
column by which the view should sort first and how that sorting should
take place (ascending or descending). Then you can optionally select
another column to further sort the items, using the second column
selection drop-down menu. This determines how items with the same value
in the first column you selected will be sorted.
For example, you might want to sort an event
list by Start Date column first and Title column second; that way, if
two items have the same start date, the one scheduled to start first
will appear first.
A different example would be to sort a
document library using the Title column (ascending) first and then the
Created column (descending) second. That way, if two files have the
same title (not name), the one created later would appear before the
older one.
Note
Some view types do not allow you to pick a
sort order. For example, the Calendar view type does not have a sort
order because calendars always display the events in them sorted by the
start date of the event.
The last option under the Sort section is
Sort Only by Specified Criteria. By default, SharePoint views show
folders above any files or items, regardless of the name of the folder.
If you want the sorting to also affect the position of the folders in
the view, select this option, and folders are treated as if they were items when they are sorted. Figure 2
shows how a document library with folders is displayed when the view is
configured to sort only by specified criteria—sorting on the filename.
FIGURE 2 A view configured to
sort only by specified criteria. Folders are sorted as if they were
documents and appear in sequence with the documents.
