I've run into a snag with getting sorting by date to work correctly in InfoMaker. For example: I just made a very simple test tab that pulls customer_no, perf_name, and perf_dt from ticketing history. The underlying perf_dt column is a datetime datatype, and all of the columns in IM follow the "cb_#" naming convention to make them sortable. When the tab is first opened on a constituent, the ticketing data is displayed as per the order-by code in the underlying sproc (by perf_dt desc in this case).
The perf_dt column header can be clicked, and IM "sorts" the data, first by perf_name ascending, then by perf_name descending, then by perf_dt desc again. I can't seem to get it to sort by perf_dt ascending, and the perf_name column sorts in no identifiable date or name order.
At first I thought this issue might have crept in with Tessitura v11 and/or IM v12 and lots of customer_no grouping, but the above test tab contains no grouping.
I'd like to get date sorts in IM working as nicely as they do in the Orders tab, and think I must be missing something simple.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Hi Chris,
I ran into something similar recently with some tax letters I was creating for the Sarasota Opera. I had sorting setup properly on the header for the report and no matter what I did, the contribution date refused to sort.
I found out that the header actually has nothing to do with it. If you go to the Rows Menu in IM 12.5 there is a sort option there, and that actually controls the sort for the detail on the report.
Please let me know if that applies in your case or not.
Thanks!
-Ryan
Thanks for your reply, Ryan. My case is specific to custom tabs rather than reports, though, and reversing the perf_dt column sorting in particular. The data is returned and displayed correctly when the tab is loaded, but is not correctly re-sorted in reverse perf_dt order after clicking the header, despite the "cb_#" tags.
Perf_dts sort and re-sort correctly in the Orders tab, though, and I wonder what's different about a custom tab.
I finally had some time to dig into this, and find that both the Rows -> Sort -> Specify Sort Columns and the Tess-specific "cb_#" column name values are relevant to get sorting to work correctly in Tess v12 with IM v12.1.
The ways that the IM sort columns and the Tess column names influence each other are rather under-documented, but after some experimentation I've got the sorting I wanted.