How to specify an order for the columns in a matrix?

Question

I'm working on a SQL Reporting Services report (in VS.Net 2005) which displays a count of different data in a matrix. The columns have a count on the amount of customers in a certain set. So I have several columns like these: "1 employer", "2-9 employers", "10-19 employers" and so on.

The problem I have is that SQL Reporting Services sorts the columns in the matrix alphabetically. So I end up having the "10-19" column after the "1 employer" column but before the "2-9".

Is there any way to fix this? Or maybe a trick to change the labels of the columns to that they sort right?

Thanks.

Answer 1

We do a lot of SSRS Reports and this was always an issue with mdx. Here is one way we do it:

Set Sorting in the Grouping and Sorting Properties to sort by this expression:

=iif(Fields!DataSetField.Value = "ColumnName", "zzz", Fields!DataSetField.Value)

Where "zzz" could be a number or whatever you need it to be to help the sort and then select Direction as either Ascending or Descending base on this expression.

Answer 2

This can also be done by adding a new column to the query for the sort order. Then right click the column group from the matrix and select group properties. On the left hand side select sorting. From here you can specify another column to sort by instead of the column header. No custom formula needed.

Answer 3

This may be a bit convoluted, but we had a similar problem and no means to change the SQL. What we did was create a calculated field in the dataset that returns a number for each column and sorted the group on that number.

Answer 4

I had a similar problem but did not find a solution using a matrix in time - so I used a table - and put the needed logic of the matrix in my SQL-statements. It's not the best thing to do but it works - it's fast enough and it don't takes that long to write.

Answer 5

I went into MATRIX --> PROPERTIES --> GROUPS. Then, I "moved" the GROUP I wanted it to sort by UP in the list. I went to PREVIEW, and it worked perfectly. It even kept my column order the same.

Answer 6

Go to Edit Group - Sorting - Change the direction to descending for the expression.

Answer 7

For distinct numeric order of a Tablix use following line of code in expression.

=RunningValue(CountDistinct("YourTableName"),Count,"YourTableName")