Specifiy sort criteria - i.e NOT alphabetically

[Guest]

Hi, I have a "Risk Report" that I need to sort in the order of importance of
the risk. Risks are rated by two fields:

Field 1: RAG Status (possible values of): "Red", "Amber", "Green"
Field 2: Impact (possible values of): "High", "Medium", "Low"

So I need the "Red, High" Risks to appear first, then the "Red, Medium",
"Red, Low", "Amber, High", "Amber, Medium"

Obviously the sort alphabetically either ascending or descending won't
achieve this. How can I achieve this sort order? The "Prefix Characters"
option in the "Sorting and Grouping" BOx sounds promising but I cannot find
any help files on it.
Thanks, Mark

 

[Guest]

I would create another table that contain two fields,
1. Description
2. A number to sort the records by
And then link the tables, and sort by the number
======================================
Another option will to create another field in the record source of the
Report, that will be used for the sort only

E.g
Select IIf(Impact = "Low",1 , IIf( Impact = "High",2,3)) As ImpactSort From
TableName

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Mark

Since you can create any text value in your Status and Impact fields, you
could have:
Field 1: "Apple", "Mercedes", "Screwdriver"
Field 2: "Swim", "Bike", "Jog"

There's no way Access can know which order these should be sorted in, and
can only do the sorts it knows (i.e., numeric, alphanumeric).

If YOU want to impose an order on these, you'll need to come up with an
additional field connected to each of these. That field can be an alpha
character, so you could sort that field alphanumerically, or could be an
integer, so you could sort numerically. Your choice.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, I had a usspicion I might have to create some kind of lookup. I'm
suprised though that Microsoft doesn't allow you to specify in some kind of
Value List, the order in which you want records to be displayed.

Cheers
Mark

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Mark

How 'bout in Excel, or Word? I suspect that all these offer alpha or
numeric sorts, but if you want more, you have to define how.