Custom sorting in report

[smeco]

I have a report with a list of payments to make
I need to make the list sorted accordingly to how the payments are presented for signature, so this is very random and doesn't depend on any of the fields
what's the quickest way of moving things in the order I want?

 

[Joe4]

If there is no rhyme or reason to the sorting order than you would need to create some sort of manual order field that you can populate and then sort on this field.

 

[smeco]

But is there a way of doing this directly from the report?
If possible, I'd like to avoid having to go back to the table, insert all the values manually and then re-open the report - the ideal I guess would be a simple drag&drop operation but that's probably impossible...

 

[Joe4]

Once you have created the report, it is already too late. You cannot move them around once it has been created. There is no clicking and dragging. You must tell Access how to sort the reports via some sort of logic (i.e. based on some field value).

I would probably add a field to your table, something like "MySort". Then you can create a Form to edit this field. Then have your report sort on this field.

 

[smeco]

thanks
however, since the data comes from a union query, I'm not allowed to enter data in the form - any idea how to get around this?
thanks
smeco

 

[Joe4]

Hmmm...

I am beginning to see the dilemna. I am unsure how to update values through a Union Query. You could create forms for each query/table that makes up the Union Query, but that isn't too efficient.

You could also make your Union Query a Make Table Query, to create a new table of data with the intent of only using to produce the reports (you could then update the fields), but that isn't the most efficient thing either.

Are you sure is no logic to the ordering of these reports?

 

[smeco]

no, the ordering simply depends on which payment gets prepared first etc etc...

btw, what's a Make Table Query?!

thank you very much!

 

[Joe4]

Can you capture the prepared date/time and use that for sorting purposes?

 

[smeco]

m I guess, although it would have to be entered just for that reason - the preparing is 'physical' ie putting all the papers together etc