Ordering of Categories

benjamin · November 3, 2010 4:39PM

Hi

I have created a field which is dependant upon a date time field .The created field i have passed a variable through which the user can change to alter the grouping and thus output of this field. Say between Monthly dates to quarterly datyes .By default the created field is specified as category .However when i plot a bar chart against this split the ordering of the bars for the quarters is ordered logically however the ordeing of the dates is not.I have changed the field to graded and ordered the outputs in search/values options however each time the user changes the inputted variables the ordering is not remembered.

How do i overcome this problem ?

How does omnisocpe order categories at the default level ?

November 4, 2010 8:54AM

Benjamin - you can sort categories manually (look for 'value colouring & ordering' in the context menu from a category field)... but it sounds like you have done that? If you post your file up here I will happily have a look for you...

benjamin · November 12, 2010 5:17PM

Yes i have done that and it still does not work .

My problem is :

I have a field .This field depends on say dates of the year ie Jan,Feb,March ETC.

The field works like this

if(input=1,monthly dates,if(input=2,quarterly,))

Where input is defined by the user on the tab screen and quarterly is just a formulae which turns a date into its retrospective quarter of the year.

Now every time the user changes between input=1 to input=2 and the dates change from Feb,March etc to Q1,Q2,Q3 etc then bar chart ordering is not in the logical ordering ie Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4 and Feb,March,June etc.

Any advice.

November 13, 2010 4:04PM

Benjamin

If you're happy using formulae, then there is a workaround - it's not ideal, but worth considering. If you create a new field e.g. "Ordered Month" with the formula:

TEXTVALUE([Date field],"MM MMMM")

This will convert your dates to month values, formatted like:
01 January
02 February
03 March
etc.

Omniscope will then order these months as you would expect - the numeric month number will be treated alphanumerically (the standard Omniscope sort) and you will get the result you're after... although you sacrifice a little presentation clarity in the process.

benjamin · November 15, 2010 4:29PM

Thanks

Welcome!

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