How To Use Custom Sort in Microsoft Excel

Excel training in Singapore at Intellisoft

Do you know how to use custom sort in Excel?

I bet you know how to sort data in Excel. It is pretty easy. Most of the time an ascending sorting is what we need – letters and numbers listed in the ascending order a to z, 1 to 100 etc. And just in case you need to sort in the reverse order, you have the Z to A sort, also called the Sort in Descending order. Between the two, most people are quite happy, thanks to Microsoft‘s intuitive sorting options.

However, there arises a time when you don’t want either the sort in Ascending order or the Descending order in Excel.

Examples where a Standard Sorting won’t work:

For example, if the departments in your organization are Finance, Marketing, Sales & Engineering. And you want the Sales department to be listed first, followed by Marketing, Engineering, and Finance being the last.

Now how would you sort the departments in this order? Ascending or descending sort is not going to work.

Do not despair however. Here is where the power of Microsoft Excel Custom sort shines.

Another scenario is the Sorting of Months – say you want to sort April, May & June, in this order. Or maybe you want to sort regions by East, West, North & South. This EWNS order also needs a custom sorting in Excel.

Or if you have a completely random order – which defies any kind of sorting. Say you want to list Oranges, then Apples, then Grapes, and finally Bananas. You can go nuts without custom sorting criteria in Excel.

Using Custom Sort in Excel 

First, let’s create the custom list in Excel.

Go to Tools, Options, Custom Lists.

You can key in your list and click Add. Or you can import your list from another area of the spreadsheet, where you list the options in the sorted order.

Custom sort option screen in Excel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you have imported the list in the correct order, you can go to Data, Sort, and then click on Options at the bottom of this popup window.

Choose your custom sorted list from the list of First Key Sort Order.

Voila! Your list is now sorted in your very own custom order.

Multi level sort in Excel with Custom Sorting options

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alternatives to Custom Sort in Excel

Of course, if you don’t want to use Custom Sort, there are other alternatives. I have often used a Lookup Table

Fruit                Sorting
Oranges             1
Apples               2
Grapes               3
Bananas            4

I then use the inbuilt Lookup function of Excel called VLOOKUP function and pick the correct value, and then do an Ascending sort. This is a quick cheat trick.

But it would be tough if you did not know how to use the Lookup functions of Excel in the first place. More on this lookup function in another post.

Let me know if this neat trick help you. And if you want to learn more, join me in a Excel Training workshop in Singapore.

Till then…

Cheers,
Vinai Prakash
Founder & Master Trainer at Intellisoft Systems, in Singapore

Do You Use These Advanced Features in Microsoft Excel?

Advanced Excel training at Intellisoft
Practical hands-on advanced excel training at Intellisoft
Practical hands-on advanced excel training at Intellisoft

Most people hardly use the huge number of features available in Microsoft Excel. Many are just using Excel as a calculator. This is a gross under use of Excel’s vast potential and feature rich functionality.

Do a quick check, and see if you use these advanced features of Microsoft Excel in your day to day work.

Some of the common things that can be done easily with Excel are:

  1. Finding the Top 10 Customers or Finding the Bottom 10 Performers in the organization
  2. Highlight values that are above or below a certain threshold – like all sales above $25,000 to be highlighted
  3. Sort the values in Ascending, Descending or any customized order – like sorting in order of Manufacturing, Accounts, Sales departments.
  4. Give Names to Range of Cells, and then use them in formulas for easy referencing and decoding
  5. Exploit Pivot Tables to Summarize the data and slice & dice it in any way – finding sales by product groups, or calculating productivity by department
  6. Write Macros to automate routine things that save you a huge amount of time – example creating pivots, charts, tables, and doing complex calculations automatically.
  7. Use advanced filtering conditions, and be able to filter data using multiple different criteria
  8. Create fantastic charts that portray the given business situation perfectly. There are over 50 different types of charts to choose from, and each has its edge, advantages and a reason.
  9. Create management dashboard that are dynamic, and provide a complete snapshot of the key business KPIs in the company – change the chart values at the click of a checkbox or change in a drop-down value
  10. Use Excel’s advanced What-If analysis to do projections for future, forecasting, trend analysis etc. with ease
  11. Use Lookup tables to find any value or corresponding value from a table using advanced functions and formulas

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft Excel is really extremely powerful. Each version of Microsoft Excel – be it Excel 2007, or Excel 2010 or Excel 2013 adds more and more features to the already powerful dynamite of a package.

At Intellisoft, we teach people how to leverage the maximum power out of Microsoft Excel in short training courses. Some of the popular courses are:

We have a number of Public Classes each month, and we also provided In-House Training to your staff and team at your office, if you have a group of 10+ people, and have a room to hold the training.

So what are you waiting for? If you would like to learn any one or more of such useful features of Microsoft Excel, come for a short Excel Training at Intellisoft.

Go ahead, equip your team with the right skills. Get everyone on board to learn the basic and advanced features of Microsoft Excel, and Be Awesome in Excel!

Email to training@intellisoft.com.sg or call +65-6250-3575 for the next available schedule of Microsoft Excel Training in Singapore.

We are located at Fortune Centre, in Singapore! Location Map of Intellisoft

Cheers,
Vinai Prakash, PMP, ITIL, Six Sigma, GAP,
Master Trainer

How To Write Excel Formulas

Learn Excel at Intellisoft

Do You Know How to Write Excel Formulas?

Chances are that you can only click on the Autosum button to add a few numbers. If you have never written a single formula in Microsoft Excel, fret not. It is not difficult at all. In fact, with our step by step Excel training, you will be able to write Excel formulas in no time.

Advanced Excel training at Intellisoft in Singapore
Advanced Excel training at Intellisoft in Singapore

The real power of Microsoft Excel is the usage of Formulas. This is what differentiates it from Paper or Typewritten Reports. With the use of Formulas, Excel can calculate and update the totals, and complex calculation or computations on the fly.

How Excel identifies Rows and Columns

Excel uses a simple numbering system to differentiate between cells. Each cell or box that you see in an open Excel file has a unique number – pretty much like the pigeon hole letter box that each house has. Each letterbox number is unique, making the life of postmen easier.

In Excel, Rows are numbered from 1 onwards. These Rows appear on the Left of your screen.

Excel VLookup Sample
Excel VLookup Sample Setup

For Columns, it uses alphabet combination – like A, B, C, and when it comes to Z, it starts with AA, AB, AC and so on.

So the first cell cross-section of column A and row 1 is called A1, column M and row 5 is called M5. Simple huh?

Using Rows & Columns in a Formula

How does these unique references to each cell make a difference? Well, let’s say you want to add the total of A1 and A2  in the cell A10. All you need to do is to go to A10 cell, and then start to write a formula.  A formula begins with the = sign.

So you are at A10. Key in =A1+A2 and hit the enter key.

That’s it. You see the totals of A1 & A2 show there.

Go ahead. Fire up Excel. You can’t learn Excel by looking at tutorials. You have got to try it out, and practice. Practice makes you perfect.

Exercise:

  1. Key in 20 in cell C1, 30 in cell C2, and 40 in cell C3.
  2. Then go to cell C4, and key in the formula to calculate the total.
  3. If it matches 90, you have got it correct!
  4. Congratulations. You are on your way to write Excel Formulas and get better at computing using Microsoft Excel.

Cheers,
Vinai Prakash
founder & principal trainer at Intellisoft Systems Singapore.

Looking for Microsoft Advanced Excel Training? You have come to the right place

Contact us at +65 6250-3575 for any questions, or to join our upcoming classes in various versions of Excel.

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