What is Quick Sorting in Tableau?

Tableau gives us the option to Quick Sort data present in our visualizations.

We can instantly sort data from the visualization by simply clicking on the sort button present on the axes of a graph or chart.

An ascending sort is performed upon one click, the descending sort is performed on two clicks and an applied sort is cleared on three clicks on the Quick Sort icon.

We can use a quick sort on either our State field, or our Profit field. A quick sort on state sorts our bars ascending or descending on the state name. Whereas a sort on profit will order our bars by the amount of profit.

Quick Sort

The quick sort function in Tableau can be useful in most simple scenarios. For all my examples I’m going to be using Superstore Sales. In the image below I have a bar chart showing profit by state.

1

We can use a quick sort on either our State field, or our Profit field.

A quick sort on state sorts our bars ascending or descending on the state name.

Whereas a sort on profit will order our bars by the amount of profit.

At any time we can bring up the Sort dialogue box (right-click on the Dimension field in the view and select Sort) to see what Tableau has applied to create the quick sort.

Above is how Tableau applied a quick sort by Profit. Note – you can go ahead and select any Measure field to sort by, even if it’s not in play on the View.

Quick sorts are great when we are creating quick explorations of our data and our charts are fairly simple. However, challenges arise when we start adding in additional fields to the view.