How To By
You are here:
Last Updated On

This section describes how to sort information in your reports, which you do on the Sort and Group Results tab of the Workbench window.

Note: Sorting for a Cross-Tab Request is done on the Select Data Items tab. The Sort and Group Results tab is unavailable. 

To sort your data:

  1. Go to the Sort and Group Results tab of the Workbench window. How do I get to this tab?
  2. Highlight the data item you want to sort on.Note: Foxfire! automatically displays only data items you specified for the Request. In some cases, you may want to sort a Request based on a data item that doesn’t appear in the Request. In such cases, select All Items in the Choose From drop-down box. To switch back to only the Request’s data items, choose Selected Items.
  3. Click Add or right-click and choose Sort by this item.
  4. (Optional) Change the sort order (A-Z or Z-A) by clicking the Sort Order buttons.
  5. (Optional) Repeat steps 3-5 if you want to sort on multiple data items. The order in which “sort by” data items are selected controls the sorting sequence. The first item in the list specifies the primary or major sort, the second specifies the secondary or intermediate sort, and so on. The last sort is called the minor sort.Example: The first item in the Selected list is Last Name. The second is First Name. These choices make the initial sort on last names and the secondary sort on first names. This is a “phone book” sort where Adams comes before Baker. If there are several Bakers in the report, Frank Baker will come before Gail Baker.

Creating a Derivative Request by Varying the Sort Order

Sometimes it’s useful to use the current Request to create one or more derivative Requests based on the current one but with a different sort order. This helps you view the data in a Request in a number of ways. To do this, from the Request Manager, right-click on the Request and choose Save As. Assign a new name and description for the Request. Then sort the data following the steps shown above. 

Note: It may make the report easier to read by rearranging the position of data items in the detail line to match the sort order.

Table of Contents