I miss the possibility to sort entries by dates without putting the entries without dates first. It is not logical for tasks use for example. Similar feature would be the ability to group by a field separating in two groups : entries with this field empty and entries with this field not empty. For example, entries without dates and entries with dates.
+12Thanks for the feedback, over time we plan on making Sorting more powerful and customizable, so we may at some point introduce a way to specify whether blanks appear at the beginning or end.
For now, you can create a formula field with the value IF({Due Date}, 1, 0) (where Due Date is the name of your date field). That will give you a 1 when the date is filled and 0 when the date is empty.
You can group by this formula field to get 2 groups as you described.
You can also sort by this field and then by the date field, in order to get the sort order you described with non-empty dates first.
I agree. The blanks being entered above the sorted list is frustrating. I am alphabetically sorting tags, and I expect to start with A. I want to check that I have tagged my entries correctly before continuing to tag the remainder.
+5This should be implemented ASAP!
E.g. when giving Due Dates to specific tasks, which implies immediacy over “No Dates”, the ones with Due Dates are sorted last.
The same problem applies to other similar situations; e.g. when sorting by prioritization (via Numbers), it will sort “Null” over “1”. I understand if “0” goes before "1”, but a Null value is not 0.
It’s actually a deal-breaking misfeature regarding task management. I’m surprised it’s the current design.
Same problem. It’s madly frustrating that when I want to sort a spreadsheet by priority numbers (1-3), and it puts blanks on top…or when we want to sort A-Z and blanks go on top… Assume the international spreadsheet standard is that blanks are omitted from sorts?
Matt_Bush wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, over time we plan on making Sorting more powerful and customizable, so we may at some point introduce a way to specify whether blanks appear at the beginning or end.
For now, you can create a formula field with the value IF({Due Date}, 1, 0) (where Due Date is the name of your date field). That will give you a 1 when the date is filled and 0 when the date is empty.
You can group by this formula field to get 2 groups as you described.
You can also sort by this field and then by the date field, in order to get the sort order you described with non-empty dates first.
Hi Matt, if you’re still with Airtable, could you suggest a work-around for this query? At the moment, I’ve added a number to the priority column and sorted Z-A, but it’s not as intuitive to our team as we’d like, Thanks!
Hi everyone! Had this problem and I had a quick workaround. I first grouped my data by a different category. In my case I used “Status” with the fields being “Confirmed”, “Pending”, and “Wishlist”. Then I sorted based on my Date Field.
Fields without a data were tagged as “pending”. You can change the order in which the groups appear by changing the order of the single select tags.
Hope that helps.
Hey !
For those who come by, you also can use the formula
IF({Due Date}, {Due Date}, "2999-12-30T00:00:000Z")
Due Date is your date field and "2999-12-30T00:00:000Z" is just the 30th of december 2999. Once you've done that just name the formula "due date for sorting", hide it and use it only for your sorting et voilà
Thank's Matt for the initial formula !
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