How do I group rows prior to a data sort so they stay together?

[Guest]

I have created a sales prospecting report that also tracks estimated revenue
over the next 16 months. For the revenue purposes, I am also tracking (in
separate rows for each project) estimated 1: revenue; 2: expenses: net with a
repeating header. All in all, for each project, I have 4 rows I want to keep
together in a sort.

Is there a way to do this in excel?

 

[Guest]

hi,
there is no xl function or menu item that will do this. but you can do it
with a helper column which is a added column(which you can hide) that is used
for sorting only. assign each group a sort order number in the helper column
so that it will sort in the order you wish then used the sort(helper) column
as the first sort order.

worked for me before.

Regards
FSt1

 

[Jim Cone]

Linda,

You might also check out this approach from John Walkenbach...
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/usertips/tip040.htm


Regards,
Jim Cone
San Francisco, USA

I have created a sales prospecting report that also tracks estimated revenue
over the next 16 months. For the revenue purposes, I am also tracking (in
separate rows for each project) estimated 1: revenue; 2: expenses: net with a
repeating header. All in all, for each project, I have 4 rows I want to keep
together in a sort.

Is there a way to do this in excel?

 

[Guest]

I tried this but the methodology wasn't effective - I think it was because I
tried 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 2a, etc. I eventually repeated the entries for each of
the 4 rows ("customer" was the 2nd sort parameter and "status" was the
first). To make them sort in the order I wanted (not alphabetically), I put
a 1, 2, 3 in front of the "parameter" (in this case, 1I for imminent, 2Pr for
probable, etc. and for aesthetics, whited the repeated fonts so it wouldn't
busy-up the page.

Thanks very much for your response.

 

[Guest]

Jim, thank you. This somewhat helped. I had done this for the primary
sorter columns but not for the secondary. When I saw your link, I did it for
the secondary also and it sorted fine. For aesthetics, I put the "repeated"
entries in a white font so that it didn't "complicate" the look of the
spreadsheet.

Thank you very much.

Linda