Sorting Relational Data

You can sort items to view them in your preferred order. By default, IBM® Cognos® Analytics - Reporting retrieves items in the order defined in the data source. OLAP data sources always have a defined order. Relational and dimensionally-modeled relational data sources may not always have a defined order. The data modeler defines the sorting options in the model.

For more information about data modeling, see the IBM Cognos Framework Manager User Guide. Sorting applied in Reporting applies only to the layout within the report.

You can sort items in a list in ascending or descending order based on a value or a label, such as revenue or employee name. You can also perform advanced sorting to sort columns within groups or to sort a row or column using another data item.

Tip: The Sales Growth Year Over Year sample report in the GO Data Warehouse (analysis) package includes sorting.

Procedure

  1. Click the column or row on which to sort.
  2. In the report object toolbar, click the Sort icon sort icon and click Ascending or Descending.

    An arrow appears beside the data item to indicate that a sort order was set.

    When you specify a sort order for more than one column, the columns are sorted in the order in which they were inserted in the report. For example, you add columns A, B, and C to a report and specify a sort order for each. When you run the report, column A is sorted first, then column B, and then column C. You can change the order in which the columns are sorted in the Edit Layout Sorting options.

    Tip: To remove a sort order, click Don't Sort.