No option to manually rearrange the sort of data

Marybeth Snodgrass

Summary

Need sort option by letter grade ("A+", "A", A-", "B+", etc.") - critical need for universities

Content

We have a critical need to be able to drag and drop to reorder bars in graphs.

Our specific urgent use case is to correctly order by student grade for a class: Need the order to sort: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc. The only options currently available is alphabetically, rendering the only order to be A, A+, A-, B, B+, B-, etc.

In Tableau, this can be done by dragging and dropping the bars in graph to the position you want.

GaryCrisci

I haven't tried this so not sure if it would work, but you can create a new value/column in the data prep area using a switch/case statement to assign a numeric value to the letter grade (A+ = 1, A = 2, A- = 3, B+ = 4, etc.). You can then sort the data set based on the calculated numeric column.

I know everything I am suggesting will work except for how it will render in the graph; I'm not sure if the sort by value has to be on the graph. Assuming the graph just takes the sorted data set, then it might work.

 

Marybeth Snodgrass

Thanks for the reply, Gary. Yes, this unfortunately it doesn't render on the graph as i'd like.. There is no way to hide the sort number measure when I plot on graph with the attribute like content authors can to with OTBI. Also, there is no way to sort these values in my filter list of values, as is enabled in OTBI.

We are trying to convince our university admissions team to not purchase Tableau (which they are pushing for HARD, especially those with previous Tableau experience) and to use OAC DV, which we have already purchased as a university as a whole, instead. I know that your suggestion for sorting by a "sort" column would technically work, but this would be a work-around and not ideal as the "complexity" of this (for admissions team, comprised mostly of individuals with little BI analysis experience) instead of being able to drag and drop where they want each bar on graph is yet another point in the "con" tally for Tableau over OAC DV in their eyes...

Would love to post this in the Idea Lab, but there is no category to choose for Data Visualization..

GaryCrisci

I forwarded a link of this post to OAC Product Management and asked for someone to take a look at it. Would be a shame to lose to Tableau over something like this. Hoping they can tackle it and come up with a way to make it work for you.

Good luck

 

Marybeth Snodgrass

Thanks!

GaryCrisci

Hi Marybeth,
Here's the response I got back from PM; "Thanks for the heads up, it is a gap that we are working on. We will look for a quick workaround, if possible."

Hopefully they can come up with something soon.

 

 

Marybeth Snodgrass

What is the method that you are contacting OAC Production Management in which you are able to receive such a prompt reply?

GaryCrisci

We're personal friends, so I called him.

Marybeth Snodgrass

Amazing. Definitely adding you to my customer connect network

Jeff Usko

So, maybe too little too late...fig'd another 'trick' / workaround. for a simliar problem. Might help somebody else, to sort groupings like 0-1, 1-5, 5-10, 10-15, 15-20  and 20+ which DV sorts as alpha....it was sorting as 0-1, 1-5, 10-15, 15-20, 20+, 5-10.

I created BINs in a dataflow, for the labels I put a space before the first 3, ex. ' 0-1', ' 1-5', ' 5-10'...and sorted alphabetcal.