How to Sort a Slicer in Power BI

A Power BI slicer that's sorted alphabetically when it should be chronologically can make an otherwise great dashboard feel clumsy and confusing. It’s a small detail that makes a huge difference in user experience. This guide will walk you through the various ways to sort your slicers, from basic alphabetical sorting to creating fully custom orders for something like "Small," "Medium," and "Large."

Why Does Slicer Sorting Even Matter?

Imagine a slicer for months of the year that’s sorted alphabetically: April, August, December, February, January... it’s not just messy, it’s unusable. Users expect to see months in chronological order. The same applies to slicers for product tiers, stages in a sales funnel, or satisfaction ratings. Sorting isn't just about making things look tidy - it’s about making your report intuitive and easy for your audience to use.

When users can quickly and logically find what they're looking for, they're more likely to engage with your dashboard and trust the data it presents. Getting the sort order right removes a common point of friction, so let's fix it.

Method 1: The Basics - Alphabetical and Numerical Sorting

Power BI's default behavior is to sort slicers alphabetically for text fields and numerically for number fields. This works perfectly fine in many situations. You can easily switch between ascending (A-Z, 1-10) and descending (Z-A, 10-1) order directly on the slicer visual.

This is the simplest way to sort, and it often covers a lot of ground. Here’s how to do it.

Step-by-Step: Toggling Basic Sort Order

1. Select the Slicer: Click on the slicer visual on your report canvas to activate it.
2. Find the Ellipses (...): In the top-right corner of the slicer visual, you'll see three dots (...). Click them to open a context menu.
3. Choose Your Sort Order: In the menu, you'll see options like "Sort ascending" and "Sort descending." Selecting "Sort ascending" will sort your list from A to Z or in increasing numerical order. "Sort descending" will do the opposite.

You’ll also see a "Sort by" option, which defaults to the field you've placed in the slicer. For a simple slicer of product names, the default alphabetical sort is exactly what you need. But what happens when alphabetical isn't the logical order?

That's where the next method comes in.

Method 2: The Most Common Solution - Sorting One Column by Another

This is the fix for 90% of slicer sorting problems. The classic example is sorting months of the year. If you have a "Month Name" column with values like "January," "February," etc., Power BI will sort it alphabetically by default. To fix this, you need a second column that provides the correct numerical order (e.g., a "Month Number" column with values 1, 2, 3...) and tell Power BI to use that column for sorting.

This "Sort by Column" feature tells Power BI to use the values of one column to define the sort order of another. Let's walk through it with the month example.

Step-by-Step: Using "Sort by Column"

For this to work, your table needs a text column you want to sort (e.g., 'Month Name') and a number column that dictates the correct order (e.g., 'Month Number'). Many date tables in Power BI automatically include these columns.

1. Switch to the Data View: In the left-hand navigation pane of Power BI Desktop, click the "Data" icon (it looks like a table).
2. Select Your Column to Sort: Find and click on the header of the column whose sort order you want to fix. In our case, we'll click on the 'Month Name' column to select it. The column will become highlighted.
3. Find the "Sort by Column" Tool: With the column selected, a new "Column tools" tab will appear in the ribbon at the top of the window. In this tab, you'll find a "Sort by Column" button.
4. Choose Your Sorting Column: Click the "Sort by Column" button. A dropdown menu will appear listing all the other columns in the same table. From this list, select the column that defines the correct order. We’ll select 'Month Number'.
5. Done! Check Your Slicer: Power BI will process this for a moment. Once it's done, go back to the "Report" view. Your 'Month Name' slicer will now be correctly sorted chronologically: January, February, March, April, and so on. This change applies everywhere this column is used, in charts, tables, and slicers.

Another Example: Product Sizes

Let's say you have a t-shirt store and a "Size" column with values like "Small," "Medium," "Large," and "X-Large."

By default, a slicer would sort them alphabetically: Large, Medium, Small, X-Large. This isn’t ideal for shoppers.

To fix this, add a "Size Sort Order" column to your 'Products' table in Excel, a database, or directly in Power Query before loading it into Power BI. It would look something like this:

• Small → 1
• Medium → 2
• Large → 3
• X-Large → 4

Once you have this helper column in your data model, you can follow the same steps: In the Data view, select the "Size" column, click "Sort by Column," and choose "Size Sort Order." Your slicers will now display the sizes in a logical order that makes sense to your users.

Method 3: Creating a Custom Sort Order with DAX

What if your data source doesn't have a neat numerical column to sort by? Or maybe you want a truly custom sort that doesn’t exist anywhere else. You don’t need to go back to the source data, you can create your own sort column directly in Power BI using a simple DAX formula.

This method is perfect for situations where you need to define a specific, non-alphabetic order for categories like priority levels ("High", "Medium", "Low"), survey responses ("Very Satisfied", "Satisfied", "Neutral", "Dissatisfied"), or internal business stages.

Step-by-Step: Adding a DAX Calculated Column for Sorting

Let's use the example of an "Issue Priority" column containing the values "High," "Medium," and "Low." Alphabetically, they would sort as High, Low, Medium, which is counterintuitive. Here’s how to fix it with DAX.

1. Go to the Data View: Navigate to the Data view and select the table that contains your "Issue Priority" column.
2. Create a New Column: In the Home or Column tools ribbon, click "New Column." This opens the formula bar where you'll write your DAX formula.
3. Write a SWITCH Formula: A SWITCH formula is the cleanest way to do this. It checks the value in a column and returns a corresponding result. For our priority levels, this formula creates a sort key.

PrioritySortOrder = 
SWITCH(
    TRUE(),
    'Issues'[Issue Priority] = "High", 1,
    'Issues'[Issue Priority] = "Medium", 2,
    'Issues'[Issue Priority] = "Low", 3,
    4  // A default value for any unexpected entries
)

This formula creates a new column called 'PrioritySortOrder'. If the 'Issue Priority' is "High," it assigns the number 1. If "Medium," it gets a 2, and so on. The final '4' acts as a default value, which is useful for catching any new or misspelled priority levels that might load in the future.

1. Set the Sort By Column: Now, this is just like in Method 2. Click the header of your original text column ('Issue Priority'), go to the "Column tools" ribbon, click "Sort by Column," and select the new 'PrioritySortOrder' column you just created.

Go back to your report, and your priority slicer will be perfectly sorted: High, Medium, Low.

Final Thoughts

Sorting slicers in Power BI is a fundamental skill for creating user-friendly and professional-looking dashboards. While the default sort often works, the "Sort by Column" feature gives you complete control, allowing you to define a logical order for any categorical data by linking it to a helper column of numbers - whether it comes from your data source or a DAX formula you create yourself.

Building intuitive dashboards is all about removing friction, and sometimes that process can get complex. At Graphed, we've focused on stripping away all those complicated steps. Instead of hunting through menus to set a sort order or writing DAX formulas, you can simply connect your data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce - and ask for what you need in plain English. You can say, "build a dashboard showing sales trends by month," and we generate a live dashboard with everything already sorted chronologically, because we understand context. If you want to spend less time configuring and more time analyzing, give Graphed a try and see how easy real-time reporting can be.