Ordering for Unsorted Entities

[interr0bangr]

Not a bug (I don’t think) but an annoying little issue I figured I’d bring up.

We like to sort many things in the list view by dates (ascending), where the oldest thing is at the top of the list and the newest thing is at the bottom.

For example:

Entity 1 - Jan 1
Entity 2 - Feb 1
Entity 3 - Mar 1

Now, when a new entity is created and its date hasn’t been set yet, I want it to show up at the bottom of my list, but instead it always shows up at the top.

So, expected:
Entity 1 - Jan 1
Entity 2 - Feb 1
Entity 3 - Mar 1
Entity 4 - NO DATE

but what I see:
Entity 4 - NO DATE
Entity 1 - Jan 1
Entity 2 - Feb 1
Entity 3 - Mar 1

It might be just me, but I would assume any undefined value should be LAST and not FIRST in a list that is sorted by ACCENDING. Basically, if something can’t be sorted, by default, display it at the bottom of the order instead of the top.

Clickup, as a comparison, treats it the way I expect it to behave where anything that cannot be sorted is always at the bottom of the list.

[Chr1sG]

See here

Choose order of empty values when sorting on Date field

Hi, When we create a board view which is sorted on a Date field, if some cards have no date value filled in, then they are always displayed before cards which contain date values. This is problematic because when we want to display a classic “to do” list with cards sorted on “ascending” dates (to see on top what to do next), then all the cards without dates are coming first. It would be great if we could choose if cards containing an empty field are displayed before of after. Maybe with 4 ch…

[interr0bangr]

Thanks for pointing me in this direction, added a vote.

[YvetteLans]

Yep, it’s a real pain in the ass.

FWIW; we’ve created several formulas to fix the sorting problems. For example; a checkbox that checks if a date is filled yes/no.

[Yuri_BC]

+1 for this properly fixed. We need to show empty fields at the bottom…I have never encountered the need to have them at the top of the list.

[Chr1sG]

The order preference (empty first or empty last) is just that, a preference.
There are cases where one or the other makes more sense, so there is nothing universally right (or proper) about either choice.
Having said that, perhaps the default in Fibery is less popular, who knows?

Anyway, letting the user choose (for entire workspace? per view?) might be nice, hence the linked to feature request.
But I don’t think it will be worked on any time soon though, sorry.

[RonMakesSystems]

Went through some other apps to see where empty dates go when its sorted:
Google Sheets: Always last
Notion: Always last
Coda: Always Last
Monday: Treated as a date from 2050, First in descending, last in ascending
Airtable: Treated as date from 1900, First in ascending, last in descending

Same behaviour is seen with other null fields.

I did some digging and it looks like the default for this depends on the database being used.

How ORDER BY and NULL Work Together in SQL | LearnSQL.com.

I personally don’t mind them going to the top, as I see it kind of like reminding the user to fill it in. But it would definitely add that extra customisation “Fibery Touch” if we had a little dropdown in the sort options for “Empty Values”: “First | Last”.

[YvetteLans]

@RonMakesSystems

It would definitely add that extra customisation “Fibery Touch” if we had a little dropdown in the sort options for “Empty Values”: “First | Last”.

That would be awesome, not only from a user perspective but also performance wise. Since we currently have multiple formulas in multiple databases for date is not empty, priority is not empty etc. Those can be removed if that feature is added.