The Sort tool is simple but one of the most used tools. It can be used for a steps in an analytics workflow, but is also often used for exploratory data analysis. It changes the order in which your rows are shown in the dataset by sorting one or many columns either ascending or descending.

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Configuration

The Sort tool only has one required multi-select input.

1

Sort By

Find the relevant columns in the tool configuration and choose if you want to sort the given column ascending (small values at the top) or descending (large values at the top). Note that you can sort by multiple columns simulteanously.

The order in which you set the Sort By selection matters! Select the column sorting in the priority that they should have, i.e. first column selection is sorting before the potential second sorting is applied

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When To Use

Use the Sort tool when you want to change the order in which the rows in your dataset appear. We added a couple of real-life examples for using the Sort tool:

  • Explore the dataset by a date column using descending sorting to get an overview of the most recent transactions, events, reviews, etc.
  • Use the Sort tool in combination with the Unique tool to get the maximum value for each of your rows. Sort by some relevant ID (ascending) and the value/date field (descending). Add a Unique tool afterwards and make the dataset unique by the relevant ID you used before. Now you have the largest value or most recent date for each of your rows
  • Get the transactions with the largest revenue amounts at the top of the dataset