Yesterday’s topic of filtering Monarch’s extractions and calculations helped to focus on specific aspects of the data. But what if, even after that effort, we’re still left with a large sample to make sense of?
Today on day 13 of the 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler series, we’ll rather quickly sort through, well, sorting with Monarch.
Organize and Prioritize
One of the easiest analysis mechanisms Monarch offers is its ability to store a number of different predefined sort orders for the data displayed in the Table window.
In the toolbar you’ll see the AtoZ icon. Clicking it displays the Sort Orders dialog. Click the New… button to create a new sort definition.
The Sort Order Definition dialog is really so clear that I probably shouldn’t even describe it. But for the sake of those who are interested in Monarch’s abilities, but who don’t yet own the software, here goes.
The first thing that you’ll want to do is create a name for your sort. Make this relevant to the nature of the sort. Just like naming filter definitions, we can use only up to 31 characters for the sort name, so name them wisely.
Next up we see a list of the available field on the left, and an empty box on the right, with Clear, Add and Remove buttons featured prominently in the middle. Click a field name in the left box, then the Add button to list this field in the sort order. The default sort order is “Ascending”. To change this to “Descending”, just double click the field name in the sort fields list.
Pretty simple, right? This is where it gets a bit more interesting. Monarch will allow us to add multiple fields to the sort order, and the order in which they appear in this list will dictate which field gets priority over which field. The field at the top of the list will be the “master” sort, and all others will follow in order until the end.
If the sequence needs to be reorganized, then we can either drag a field up or down the list or right-click on a field and select from the pop-up menu to reposition it higher or lower in the list, remove it from the list altogether, or flip its sort order.
Sorting: Goes Great with Metrics
In and of itself, defining a custom sort, or even multiple sorts for different purposes can go a long way in deciphering what’s really going on with the data, but this deceptively simple mechanism can be an invaluable tool for the system designer.
Let’s suppose for a moment that we’ve invested in ourselves and have purchased Charley Kyd’s remarkable eBook to help us rapidly learn to build great dashboard reports. In it, Charley describes the steps needed to build terrific Top 10 tables which help to spotlight items that need to convey more information than a small chart can.
The enterprising Monarch modeler, equipped with the ability to build customized sorts, will likely quickly envision how to extend Charley’s concepts to be able to build multi-level top n tables for his or her dashboard reports which will allow for the report viewer to drill down deeper without changing the related dataset and without lengthy recalculations.
Automated Sorting
This is a slight case of getting ahead of ourselves, but it’s worth mentioning before moving on that we can automate the activation of a selected sort order definition. It’s one of the few thing that we can’t do via the command line, but we do have full control of sort order activation via Monarch’s COM interface and it’s an easy task with Excel VBA with the ExcelWithMonarch.com Excel Class Module for Monarch.
Your Task for Today
Get comfortable with building custom sorts into your models. Build a handful of sorts that will assist in analyzing your data. Play with rearranging the field sequence and review the impact of the change on the data displayed.
Don’t Get Out of Sorts
Frequently the simplest tools offer the most power, and Monarch’s easy to use sorting abilities will put you in total control of your data. Master and command sorting and you’ll excel with Monarch.
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Continue your commitment to Become a Better Monarch Modeler with Part 14 of the series, or review Part 12.
