6. Sheets: Sort Your Data — Name and Sort Sheets or Ranges

In this video, you will sort the data in your spreadsheet to better understand the data.

With sorting, you can take data from a specific range, such as a column, and put it in numerical or alphabetical order. You could sort a spreadsheet of project tasks by each person on the team so they can see what tasks they need to complete.

Or you might sort a spreadsheet of product sales by the customers’ names to address a problem with a specific order. To begin, sort your entire sheet by organizing specific data in one column. Select the column that you want to use to organize your data.

Then sort it. Choose to sort your column in descending order...

Or ascending order. Or, sort by a range. Select an entire column.

Then, sort it. Sorting by a range only shifts the selected data and leaves the rest of the sheet intact. In this example, column C was rearranged while no other data shifted. But be careful when sorting by a range, as you might lose valuable information or disassociate the data.

For instance, here, you wouldn’t want to reassign a salesperson to a sale they didn’t make.

Undo your sorting.

To sort your data back to its original version, use the Sale I-D number you created earlier in this lesson. Because each sale was assigned a number, you can sort the data in numerical order at any time. Nice job! With sorting, you can adjust the way the information in your sheet is organized without changing the data itself. This is a crucial first step in analyzing your data. For example, you might want to sort your data by sales person to see who is in charge of which sales, or by method of payment to find out which type is most convenient for future customers.

Now, it’s your turn: Sort your entire sheet by one column, Sort your sheet by a range, Undo the sorting, And sort by Sale I-D.