Sorting by Status in Work View


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I’ve searched around to see if this has already been posted but can’t find anything. Apologies for the duplicate if so.

Is anyone else seeing that the Status column doesn’t sort in a logical/useful manner in a Work List View? We would expect this sort to be ascending/descending on the value of the Status field. However, it doesn’t appear to work that way.

I contacted Karbon support about this and they said: The Status column is sorted by the due date (the earliest due date first) of the work-item, and then in ascending order of the name of the work-item and then to break a tie the ID of the work-item. 

Can anyone else make sense of this? Should I submit a “feature request” to try to influence a change? Or am I looking at this incorrectly?


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Userlevel 5
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@Smitty If you click on the Due header at the top, it will switch it between descending and ascending.  You can do the same thing with all the other headers as well if you need to sort by other fields (Status, Client, Name, etc.).

If this doesn’t address the issue, I do recommend submitting a feature request.  If you do, post a link to it here so that we can vote on it.

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@Smitty If you click on the Due header at the top, it will switch it between descending and ascending.  You can do the same thing with all the other headers as well if you need to sort by other fields (Status, Client, Name, etc.).

@BrooksW thanks for the prompt response. I can see that the Due field is switching between descending/ascending as expected. However, the Status field doesn’t seem to work the same way. Does it work for you?

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@Smitty I’ve never noticed this and it’s illogical - just taken a look and I can’t work it out either! It’s not alphabetical, and it doesn’t seem to be in the order statuses are setup in settings either… They are grouped in some way, it’ s just not obvious how!! I don’t totally follow the sorting rules support gave you either! When viewing in Kanban mode, they show left > right in the order defined in settings, so it would make sense that List view has the same order… 🤔

Creating a feature request would be good - once you’ve done that, add the link here so we can vote!

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@Rebecca Williams thanks for confirming...much appreciated! Here’s the link for the “feature request” I just created: 

 

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Voted!

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@Smitty I think I’m starting to see what you are referring to.  If you sort by status, it still shows that order by due date.  What would be helpful is a sort function that works more like a spreadsheet where you can have a 1st level and 2nd level sort.  Maybe messing with the filter accomplishes that.  For example, filter out all statuses other than In Progress (so it’s only showing everything In Progress), then sorting by certain headers in a way that is more helpful.

Just throwing out ideas.  Either way, I voted for the feature request!

Userlevel 7
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I contacted Karbon support about this and they said: The Status column is sorted by the due date (the earliest due date first) of the work-item, and then in ascending order of the name of the work-item and then to break a tie the ID of the work-item. 

Can anyone else make sense of this?

Short answer, no, because it doesn’t make sense and they’ve completed disregarded the core of your query - how is it sorting the Status column, not how is it sorting when the status column is the same.. 🙁

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@Smitty and everyone following along here 😅

I asked Support, got the same result:

Hi Sam,

Wanted to send you an update for your Sorting by Status question.

The Status bin is sorted by the due date (the earliest due date first) of the work-item, and then in ascending order of the name of the work-item and then to break a tie the Id of the work-item. This is true for the following bins as well:

  • Assignee
  • Client
  • Due Date
  • Related Client Group

However the Start Date bin is sorted by the start date (the earliest one first), and then in ascending order of the name of the work-item and then the Id of the work-item.

The Completed Date bin is sorted by the completed date (the latest one first), and then in ascending order of the name of the work-item and then the Id of the work-item.

I persisted and pointed out that it’s not due date first… got this:

Hi Sam. The list is sorted as follows: 
 1. Primary Status (Planned, Ready to Start, In Progress, Waiting then Completed) 
2. Then by Secondary Status within the Primary Status. This order is determined by what is setup here:https://app.karbonhq.com/XXX#/workflow 
3. Then by Due Date 
4. Then by Start Date 
5. Then by the name of the WorkItem 
6. Finally by the Id of the WorkItem to break a tie and to be deterministic

I said, that is exactly how we want it to sort, and pointed out that it’s not working (Planned was at the bottom, rather than first)… TBC

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You’re not gonna believe it, they told me they made a mistake and it’s actually:

 1. Primary Status (In Progress, Ready to Start, Waiting, Planned then Completed) 

Which looks like this 🥴

I told them they didn’t make a mistake, whoever come up with that logic did!

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@SamG I do see logic in that order - it seems to basically be “what can someone work on next” at the top - i.e.

  • In Progress - work that has started that can be worked on 
  • Ready to Start - work that hasn’t started that can be worked on
  • Waiting - work that has started but has a blocker, so could be checked in on
  • Planned - work that isn’t yet due to start so nothing to work on
  • Completed - work that is already done so nothing to work on
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@SamG I do see logic in that order - it seems to basically be “what can someone work on next” at the top - i.e.

Although I agree that it's not entirely illogical, I don't feel it is the most logical, and given none of us picked it either, and the way the Kanban works, I think most share that feeling. Logic is A-Z, Z-A, 1-9, 9-1, and should be the same order as the statuses are listed in the filter for them.

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