Automatically ordering Multiple Select categories

[Suzu_D]

Yo!

I have been using Airtable for a little while now, coming from Trello, and I love it. Great work the Airtable team has done.

There is one way I believe this already-great program can become even better, though.

What about adding an option that allows a Multiple Select category to automatically arrange record data, based on the order the options appear in the dropdown menu?

Notice how the “Damage” option appears before “Wounds” in the top record, but then after it in the record at the bottom?

It would be of considerable benefit to a-many of us if we could get a tick option in the Multiple Select dropdown menu to automatically sort each record’s cell data.

Thanks for reading.

[ScottWorld]

I agree that this would be a helpful feature to have your field choices always be presented to you in the same order. It would make it easier to tell at a glance if a certain selection was chosen.

In the meantime:

You could group your records by that field, which might make it a little bit easier to see patterns of data, because the grouping function doesn’t care which order the items were selected in.

But for now, the only way to automatically reorder the contents of the field would be to automate the process of reordering the field’s contents via a custom JavaScript or by using an external automation tool like Integromat.

One alternative is that if you switched to a linked record field instead of a multiple select field, you could then go into the linked table and organize your linked records there by sorting/grouping. That would be a quick way to see which individual choices have been selected for which records.

[Suzu_D]

I found a sufficient alternative for now, thanks to your suggestion. I’ll also take a look at Integromat. (I was actually looking for it and could not remember the name :grinning_face_with_sweat: )

I appreciate your time.

[ScottWorld]

What is the sufficient alternative you found? You can also manually drag the order of your selections around, too.

[Suzu_D]

This is my current setup:

Originally, for example, I wanted to be able to view the “Iron Claw” records in a Gallery or Kanban style fashion, with the information appearing ordered, so I could survey the various categories. (e.g. How many “Damage” skills does the “Iron Claw” category have?) The setup above is at least better than my original setup:

[ScottWorld]

Right, as I mentioned above, grouping is a great choice.