Overview
Organising the columns (data or information) in your report will make it more meaningful and easy to interpret. In Report Builder, you have the option to order your columns into groups by specifying the order in the Order By Clauses section. Order by clauses will let you format the columns (data or information) in your report output into Ascending or Descending order.
Ascending
When used for numerical fields or column names, numbers will be displayed in increasing order, that is, from smallest to largest, and when used for letters/words, the sort is alphabetical from A to Z.
Example
Sample Output (given the sample clause above, the start date will be ordered in ascending order in the output as shown in the screenshot below)
Descending
When used for numerical fields or column names, numbers will be displayed in decreasing order, that is, from largest to smallest, and when used for letters/words, the sort is from Z to A.
Example
Sample Output (given the sample clause above, the start date will be ordered in descending order in the output as shown in the screenshot below)
Order by Several Columns or Clauses
When you order data or information with several columns, and you want to emphasize and make meaning to just two or more columns in your report.
Example 1
INFO: In the sample order clauses above, the output will be sorted by the Course Id and the Last Name column. If there will be more than one students with the same Course Id, their last names will also be displayed in order (A-Z).
Example 2
INFO: In the sample screenshot above, the report output will be sorted ascending by the Course Id column and descending by the Enrolled Year column.