Custom Sort Control in Tableau

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This week I had a lot of fun recreating Lorna Eden's #WorkoutWednesday2019 challenge. One key element was to implement a custom sort control (click to play with the interactive version on Tableau Public):

We should use a parameter to allow a sort by (city) A-Z, (city) Z-A, (profit) asc, and (profit) desc.

I really loved to see how everyone found her or his way to implement this.

Create a Sort Parameter

First thing you need isto create is a sort parameter. I created this one:

I chose an integer parameter mainly because it is easier to reference in the calculated field you have to create in the next step.

Create a calculated field

Basically, there are two ways to do it:

1. Create a sort-field without table calculations, that can be selected in the dimension field under 'sort by -> field' (you cannot use table calculation as a 'sort by'-field).
   You can do this by using the ASCII-formula. ASCII Returns the ASCII code for the first character of a string, for example 65 for A and 66 for B.
   

   

   For the A-Z and Z-A order you can then sort on avg(ASCII_code) for ascending and
   -avg(ASCII_code) for descending. For sorting by profit you can sort on sum(profit) for descending and -sum(profit) for ascending.
2. Create a calculation that includes table calculations, make it discrete and use it as a hidden dimension in the view (that's how I did it).
   Here's my calculated field:
   

   

   
   I love how you can use one identical formula for both sorting on numbers and strings. And I love how the rank formula allows you to define the sort order explicitly, instead of using a negative sign like shown in the first approach.

Implement the sort field in the view

Last step is to implemented it in the view:

Make sure to calculate the ranks on the right level of detail. In my case, I used a combined field of city and abbreviation, that's why I had to compute my ranks using these dimensions.

For the final view I hid the sort view header and was ready to go.

Nice! 😊

There are many use cases for sort controls like this, allowing users to play with the sorting!

Hope you find own use cases for this and enjoyed reading.