How to Sort a Table in Power Apps with Sort

Sort puts the rows of a table in order: people by name, requests by date, items by priority. Data from connectors comes back in whatever order the service chooses, so sorting it yourself makes lists predictable. Here's the syntax, the descending option, and a real example.

Syntax

Syntax

Sort( Table, Formula [, SortOrder ] )

• Formula is worked out for each row, usually just a column name, and the rows are ordered by the result. It must give a number, text or true/false.
• SortOrder is SortOrder.Ascending (the default) or SortOrder.Descending.

Sort returns a new table and doesn't change the original (Sort reference).

Prerequisites

• A table to sort. The example uses the direct reports of a manager from the Office 365 Users connector; see How to Get a User's Direct Reports in Power Apps.

Step 1: The Order You Get Without Sort

For Daniel, a manager in the example's demo organization, the connector returned Aisha Khan, Leo Martin. That happens to be alphabetical, but nothing guarantees it.

Step 2: Sort Descending

To see Sort change something, sort by name the other way:

Text control → Text

Concat(
    Sort(Office365Users.DirectReportsV2("daniel.brooks@example.com").value, displayName, SortOrder.Descending),
    displayName,
    ", "
)

Concat just shows the result as one line of text; see How to Join Table Values into Text in Power Apps with Concat.

Step 3: Sort What You Filtered

The Career Development Plan app keeps a manager's team in name order, after removing disabled accounts:

App → Formulas

MyDirectReports = Sort(
    Filter(
        Office365Users.DirectReportsV2(
            MyProfile.id,
            {'$select': "id,displayName,mail,userPrincipalName,jobTitle,accountEnabled"}
        ).value,
        accountEnabled
    ),
    displayName
);

No SortOrder means ascending: A to Z. See How to Filter a Table in Power Apps with Filter.

Sorting by More Than One Column

Nest Sort, innermost first:

Example

Sort( Sort( Contacts, FirstName ), LastName )

or use SortByColumns with column names as text: SortByColumns(Contacts, "LastName", SortOrder.Ascending, "FirstName", SortOrder.Ascending).

Common Mistakes

Mistake	What happens	Do this instead
Relying on a connector's order	It can change	Sort explicitly
Sorting by a field you didn't '$select'	Every value is blank, so nothing is ordered	Add the field to '$select'
Sorting a big SharePoint list by a choice or lookup column	It may not be delegable, so results can be incomplete	Sort by a plain column, or sort a smaller filtered set

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
The order didn't change	Already in that order	Try SortOrder.Descending to check
A delegation warning	The data source can't sort by that column	Sort by a delegable column

FAQ

Is ascending A to Z?

Yes, for text. For numbers, smallest first; for dates, earliest first.

Does Sort change the data source?

No. It returns a sorted copy for your formula or gallery.

Sort or SortByColumns?

Sort can sort by any formula, such as Quantity + OnOrder. SortByColumns sorts by named columns and can take an explicit order list.

Conclusion

Sort(table, column) orders rows A to Z; add SortOrder.Descending for Z to A. Sort connector results explicitly, and combine Sort with Filter for lists that are both relevant and tidy.

Additional Resources

• Sort and SortByColumns functions: syntax and examples.