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Krahnin
New Member

How to Sort Visualization by Month

I have a report powering a dashboard visualization which I would like to sort by month (text names). Currently, they display out of order. Investigating this issue, I see other discussions where it was recommended to create a month sort column (numeric values for months) and then sort the Month column by the Month Sort column. Unfortunately, I am not having any luck with this either. I created the column without issue, but when I attempt to sort Month by Month Sort, I receive the following error: "Sort By Another Column Error. This column can't be sorted by a column that is already sorted, directly or indirectly, by this column".

 

I apologize about the lack of screenshots. I am not familiar with the PowerBI community and am unsure how to attach them (clicking insert/edit image does not have an option to browse and select a file from my computer).

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance that can be offered regarding this issue.

3 REPLIES 3
MEhrenmueller
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Did you create the sort-column as an calculation based on the origin column?

 

Then you should move the calculation from the calculated column in the model to a new column in Power Query, like described here:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Sort-by-another-column-error/m-p/61355

Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
@MEhrenmueller

I did not. Actually, the column is literally straight numbers within the associated spreadsheet. As I simply needed 1-12, I manually entered them as opposed to writing an equation for it. i.e. Column A (Sort Order) contains numbers 1-12 (A1=1, A2=2, etc.) formatted as Numbers. Column B (Month) contains January-December formatted as text. There is no equation from one column to populate the other in either direction. 

MEhrenmueller
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

OK.

 

Unfortunately I did not succed in duplicating that effect.

 

Could you upload your file (after you anonymonized the containing data) so I could play with it and the effect?

Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
@MEhrenmueller

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