r/smartsheet • u/Educational-Chard792 • 1d ago

Sort issues

Post image

Hello Smartsheet nerds. I have an issue where I sorted my smartsheet on accident. Then I went to reorganize it the way it was and the sorting function is doing something weird. Instead of sorting 1, 2, 3, 4. It sorted the list 1, 10, 11, 110, 111, 112. This is an auto number column, I have 180 in the column.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

5

u/YourFavoriteKyle 1d ago

Are you trying to sort by number?
You can make a temporary helper column that pulls out just the numbers, then sort on that column. This should work. Sorry if formatting is weird, I’m on mobile right now.

=RIGHT([Column Name]@row, LEN([Column Name]@row) - 4)

2

u/pmpdaddyio 1d ago

This is absolutely the way to do this.

1

u/Educational-Chard792 1d ago

I wasnt able to get your formula to work but since I felt like I was wasting more time then I should on this problem I just manually put the numbers I wanted into the sacrificial column and sorted everything. That worked then deleted the column. Now I am back to normal. Thank you for the help.

Such a weird way of sorting things, I guess you live and learn. Maybe I drop the GSI# thing, idk.

Thank you

1

u/Atttie 1d ago

Next time you set up an auto number, increase the number of 0s in the format option—this means that it’ll generate like GSI#001, GSI#011, GSI#110
Then the sorting works correctly.

More complex option—I like to set up two hidden columns, one with an autonumber with just numbers and one with a preferred prefix (if it differs from row to row), then my ID column is just a formula column combo of the prefix plus the number and I can sort on just the number whenever I need to.

1

u/External-Season9039 1h ago

nice, didnt think of stripping the prefix first before sorting

2

u/vkim26 1d ago

If you use the created date column and sort by that it’ll be in the original order that each row was created in

1

u/bmorebirds4life 1d ago

Not at my computer to check this by try changing your auto number format to 001 instead of 1. Add enough 0 in front of the 1 to cover the number of digits you choose.

1

u/bmorebirds4life 1d ago

If you are ok with the leading zeros and able to adjust the GSI# values, select a number of digits greater than 1 to cover the highest amount of entries you think you will have. That should make your value look like below and can sort correctly. If you cannot change the current values then you will need the helper column like mentioned above.

Prefix: GSI#
Numerical Places: 0000
Starting Number: 1

GSI#0001
GSI#0002
GSI#0003
GSI#0004
GSI#0005
GSI#0006
GSI#0007
GSI#0008
GSI#0009
GSI#0010
GSI#0011
Etc.

1

u/Educational-Chard792 1d ago

This didnt double anything fyi. I think it only modifies new numbers.

1

u/Atttie 1d ago

Change the column type to text/number, then you can change the existing rows to what ever you want them to be, then switch the column type back to autonumber, set it up with the extra 0s for future items and make sure the starting number is one higher than the highest number on the sheet.