SortByColumn custom sort error and Delegation issue

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Issue-1: Custom sort error

Following code generates error: The sort order is incorrect for the type of expression in "ShiftEntry"

Sharepoint list's ShiftEntry column type: Single line text.

PowerApps ShiftEntry field type: Allowed values with items ["A","B","C","G"]

I cannot use Ascending or Descending with this as it will not show desired shift sort order.

Issue-2: Sharepoint list Delegation problem

I am aware that filter formula does not support delegation by Date column of List.

Following code warns on delegation for DateEntry >= St_From && DateEntry <= St_To

Is there any solution to avoid delegation issue in the mentioned code?

DateEntry column type: Date only

SortByColumns(
 Filter(
 [@DailyReportList2],
 DateEntry >= St_From && DateEntry <= St_To,
 StartsWith(
 MachineEntry,
 TextSearchBox1.Text
 ),
 StartsWith(
 DepartmentEntry,
 ViewAllDept
 ),
 ShopEntry in If(
 IsEmpty(St_Shop),
 FilteredView.ViewShop.Value,
 St_Shop.Value
 ),
 DepartmentEntry in If(
 IsEmpty(St_Dept),
 FilteredView.ViewDept.Value,
 St_Dept.Value
 ),
 ShiftEntry in If(
 IsEmpty(St_Shift),
 FilteredView.ViewShift.Value,
 St_Shift.Value
 )
 ),
 "DateEntry",
 If(
 SortDescending1,
 Ascending,
 Descending
 ),
 "ShiftEntry",
 ["C","B","G","A"],
 "ID",
 Descending
)

Need help !

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Answers (2)

WarrenBelz 153,084 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,
Maybe because it is one character (that is the only thing that makes sense as all the other text fields work) - you might try making it bigger in SharePoint. Also In is not delegable, so you may have some issues with that down the track.

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

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@Anonymous
Issue 2: The workaround for Dates is to create a 'buddy' column of type Number for all your date columns in SP. The format of dates in this column is set to 'yyyymmdd' that matches the existing Date column value. Create 'buddies' for all date columns you need to filter on. You can then filter using <, >, =, etc.

To retro fit these columns you can use Power Automate to fill out large datasets or just enter the data in for smaller sets. I've used the former on a number of my SP Lists.

Issue 1: It seems like you are trying to sort A,B,C,G as C,B,G,A is this correct? If so, you could build a simple collection of two columns called "ShiftEntry" and "Rank" and set "Rank" to your rank order. Then reference this collection to sort in the order you want? Not sure if that's the issue here though...

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WarrenBelz 153,084 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,
@Anonymous is correct on the dates also being a delegation issue - I was addressing your unusual error on the column and missed the actual problem with your sort order needing to follow an alpha or numeric pattern.
His solution is correct.

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@Anonymous @WarrenBelz

EElman, Issue-2: Can you suggest code to do so?
Issue-1: Rankwise it might get corrected but is this a bug that sort custom order not working for single character strings?

WarrenBelz, Thank you for support.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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@Anonymous
Issue 1: Reading the docs here it doesn't appear to a bug. You can sort by table values (I didn't know this) but you can't mix & match ie you can't say sort by column1 descending and also sort by column2 using this table, it's one way or the other.

You can sort desc/asc on many columns, but only one column when you use a table, at least that's my read of the docs.

A workaround would be to sort your SP List by ShiftEntry first then do your Desc/Asc sorting last, eg:
SortByColumns( Filter( Sort([@DailyReportList2], ShiftEntry, ["C","B","G","A"]), // here you are applying the ShiftEntry Sort DateEntry >= St_From && DateEntry <= St_To, ... ), "DateEntry", If( SortDescending1, Ascending, Descending ), "ID", Descending )
The other issue you may run into though is 'silent delegation' when using Sort ( Filter If() ) ) altogether.

I was working on a solution here yesterday that talks about getting around this and how you can identify it - you need to reduce your record limit to 5 (or some small number) to see it's affect. Let me know if you wish to look into this any further and I'll see if I can help?

Issue 2: Process is,
- create new SP column/s for your date column/s as type Number eg Date Entry can be called DateEntryNumber, or similar
- fill these new columns with numbers that correspond to the date column/s using the format yyyymmdd.
- in your formula, change this
DateEntry >= St_From && DateEntry <= St_To,
to this
DateEntryNumber >= St_From && DateEntryNumber <= St_To,
Note: it appears St_From & St_To are variables? If so, these need to be of data type Number for the above to work, I assume they are currently data type = Date?

Let me know how you get on.

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@Eelman

Fine. Filter/Sort by number is working without any delegation issues when used number in new column DateNumEntry.
But I need help in converting all DateEntry into DateNumEntry for all existing list items. Is there any flow available to do so? Current total list's item count is around 11000.

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@Anonymous
This the 3-step Flow I use for this

1. Select Manually trigger flow because you will manually run it from Flow
2. Use the SharePoint 'Get items' function.
- Pick your Site address and List
- I've set my 'Filter Query' to Not Equal to (ne) null, because some of my Date fields to be converted are null and this Flow fails if I don't do this.
You may not have to do this? Here is a link that explains ne, lt (less than), gt (greater than), etc
https://diyd365.com/2019/11/20/every-power-automate-ms-flow-filter-query-you-ever-wanted-to-know-as-a-functional-consultant/
- Top Count here is set to 2800 but I'd recommend setting it to 10-20 on your first run. If set to 10 this means 'only get the first 10 items that meet the Filter Query then do the following'. So it grabs only the number of items you set, if that makes sense?

3. Select the SharePoint function 'Update item' - Note the Apply to Each is added by flow once you choose 'value'. 'value' is selected from the Dynamic Options on the RHS
- choose your Site & List
- make sure you marry up Required fields, note here that ID & ClientName are Required because they have the Red star beside
them. All other Non-Required fields can be left blank, except for the Date Number we are adding below.

4. Here I'm referencing BookOutDate_fromPOB and converting it to a number in the field BODate_Number. To do this I:
- Select the BODate_Number field
- on the RHS, select the 'Expression' tab
- then in the fx input box I enter this formula:

int(concat(formatDateTime(items('Apply_to_each')?['BookOutDate_fromPOB'], 'yyyyMMdd'), ''))

Note the reference to BookOutDate_fromPOB. Also, your 'Apply_to_each' may be 'Apply_to_each_2'... '..._3', etc if you do this
once or twice then delete the Apply to Each. Just make sure you are referencing the correct Flow function

And that's it. You can Save and Run it to suit your needs. Once you are happy you could set your Top Count to 11000 but this could take awhile to run. To get around this you could adjust your Filter Query to also include

yourNewDateNumberColumn eq null

This way you can filter out rows that already have the new date number before the rest of the Flow runs, if that makes sense? You'd essentially be doing it in batches eg 1-2000, 2001-4000, etc

If you get stuck or anything above doesn't make sense let me know and I'll see if I can help out.

Enjoy 🙂

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@Anonymous
Thanks for explaining the flow. I am trying this out, meanwhile I was thinking if the same can be done by using Calculated values formulas in SP column, So that all existing and new item's DateNumEntry is automatically converted to Number from DateEntry.
Can you give info on that?

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@Anonymous
If you mean that you could do this by adding a calculated column in SP, then no, this would be the wrong this to do because that column would then become a 'Calculated column' and not a number column. This would create more dramas then you have already.

If this isn't what you mean then could you please explain further.

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@Anonymous
Hey, All dates converted in number. Thanks a lot 😄 (Have tested for first 500 items as top count, will do later for all)

Now finally I need flow to convert all shift code names (ShiftEntry column) into number column (ShiftNumEntry) so that my custom sort issue eliminated.
Shift code to number required... A=1, B=2, G=3, C=4

Can you help with this too?

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