Sorting

[LeeWhitt23]

 

I’m trying to sort these columns by name but I need the lines for each employee to stay with their associated employee.   For example Caleb smith is employee number 1 and the three lines above him are associated with him so if I were to sort alphabetically it throws it off into a weird order.   Any help to get this sorted would be much appreciated!

[#2]

@LeeWhitt23 

In a custom sort, you could sort on employee number first, then on material (or another column).

That will keep the rows for each employee together.

[#3]

However this will not alphabetize the employees right?

[#4]

@LeeWhitt23 

No, the layout is not suitable for that.

[#5]

need the lines for each employee to stay with their associated employee.??

Can you share your file with dummy data and expected result?

[#6]

@LeeWhitt23 How about adding a calculated column to the table for the employee name? With the help of a separate employee lookup table, you could use the XLOOKUP function to accomplish this. For example:

=XLOOKUP([@[EMP'#/LOCK'#]], tblEmployees[ID], tblEmployees[NAME])

Then sort the table by the calculated "NAME" column from A to Z:

Sort by Lookup Column

Note: if the XLOOKUP function is not available in your version of Excel, use the INDEX / MATCH equivalent:

=INDEX(tblEmployees[NAME], MATCH([@[EMP'#/LOCK'#]], tblEmployees[ID], 0))

Please see the attached sample workbook...