Manual sort order in Tableau - Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Manual sort order lets you arrange data in a custom sequence that fits your story. It helps when the default alphabetical or numerical order does not match how you want to show your data.

When you want to show months in calendar order instead of alphabetical order.

When you need to rank products by priority instead of sales numbers.

When you want to display survey responses in a specific order like Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.

When your categories have a logical order that is not numeric or alphabetical.

When you want to highlight a custom sequence for storytelling in your dashboard.

Steps

Step 1: Open your Tableau workbook and go to the worksheet with the data you want to sort

- Tableau workspace

You see your data visualized in the worksheet

Step 2: Right-click the dimension field you want to sort manually

- Data pane on the left side

A context menu appears with options related to the field

Step 3: Select 'Sort...' from the context menu

- Context menu of the dimension field

The Sort dialog box opens

Step 4: In the Sort dialog, choose 'Manual' as the sort order

- Sort dialog box

The manual sort list appears where you can reorder items

Step 5: Drag and drop the items in the list to arrange them in your desired order

- Manual sort list in the Sort dialog

The items reorder visually in the list to your custom sequence

Step 6: Click OK to apply the manual sort

- Sort dialog box

The worksheet updates to show data sorted in your custom order

Before vs After

Before

The months dimension is sorted alphabetically: April, August, December, February, ...

After

The months dimension is sorted manually in calendar order: January, February, March, April, ...

Settings Reference

Sort Order

📍 Sort dialog box after right-clicking a dimension field

Choose how Tableau sorts the selected dimension

Default: Data Source Order

Manual Sort List

📍 Sort dialog box when 'Manual' is selected

Set a custom order for the dimension members

Default: Alphabetical order of items

Common Mistakes

Trying to manually sort a measure field

Manual sort only works on dimension fields, not measures

Convert the measure to a dimension or use a calculated field to create a dimension for manual sorting

Not clicking OK after setting manual sort

Changes are not applied until you confirm by clicking OK

Always click OK in the Sort dialog to apply your manual sort order

Summary

Manual sort order lets you arrange dimension members in any sequence you want.

It is useful when default sorting does not match your storytelling needs.

Remember manual sort works only on dimensions and requires confirming changes.