Guide
A sort controls the order items appear in a view. It's view-scoped - changing a sort changes what you see, not the underlying entities.
Custom sorting is available for most data Views:
In addition, it works in the same way in Relation Filters and Sorts.
Choosing a sort order only affects how the entities are shown in the specific view - it does not change anything about the entities themselves. Sorting can be applied in many places, and an entity doesn't 'know' where it sits in the sorting order for any given view.
For this reason, it is not possible to make calculations based on the position of an entity in a view, e.g. you cannot create a formula which calculates a running sum of number values. Nor can you use a formula to get an entity's position in a list.
You can do these kinds of calculations in a Report view however, since reports operate on databases, not individual entities.
Default sorting
When no custom sorting is specified, the items are ordered manually via drag'n'drop (aka by Rank). As soon as any custom sort is enabled, the drag'n'drop reordering stops working.
Custom sorts
A custom sort orders items by a chosen field. Each sort can be ascending or descending.
One can't sort by collections: many-to-many relations, multi-select Fields, and Assignees.
While sorting by a relation Field uses Name of related Entities, sorting by select values (incl. State) uses the values' Rank (aka manual prioritisation).
Empty values
Each sort also controls where entities with no value for the sort field appear — at the top of the view or the bottom. The default is bottom.
Multiple sorts
A view can have more than one sort. Each additional sort breaks ties in the sort above it.
In the example above:
Insights are sorted by formula Highlight score
Features with the same Highlight score are sorted by Creation date
Sorts apply in the order listed and can be reordered by dragging.
Per-database sorts
When cards of multiple databases are present on the same Board, List, or Feed View, you can specify custom sorting for each DB independently. Items are grouped by database first, then ordered within each group by that database's sort.