Hi everyone,
we have a new idea proposed by PinguimGuy regarding a possible improvement to the default spreadsheet sorting order, and we'd like to discuss it
In my opinion, this idea looks really good and is worthy to be the new default sorting order:
Keep applications sorted by their status as it is right now, but inside each status, sort by a different column:
For "At CIO" applications, sort by App.received date in descending order.
For "Payment charged" applications, sort by Fee Encashed Date, in descending order.
For "PER Received" applications, sort by PER Received Date, etc.
I've implemented a Filter View, which demonstrates the proposed sorting order exactly as described:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11gAbKSoDoOr1s8_raB1qwz0i-ZH0NyNWhhn18O6kHwQ/edit#gid=1627896255&fvid=1141630743
This link sorts properly only when current number of viewers is less than 50, so here's also a screenshot, just in case (clickable):
This way we can see all the news for a particular status right away, and this is exactly the question so many people often ask here. For example, all newly charged applications are at the top of the "Payment charged" section, and by looking at their received date you can easily see that CIC is currently processing payments for May 12 applications, and that some May 8-9 applications are still being processed as well.
You can also easily see that we have our first May 7 applicants with PER, - they are at the top of PER received section.
Similarly, all newly transferred applications are at the top of "File Transferred" section. Etc.
The old default sorting order among applications of the same status is by NOC. I remember, it was because we wanted to be able to count how many applications there are per each NOC. However, now there are so many applications in many different statuses that the usefulness of sorting by NOC looks unclear anymore. It seems easier to just check the "Apps by NOC" sheet rather than counting this manually.
If we approve the new sorting order, the old one will be accessible via Filter Views, in case anyone still needs it.
In my opinion, this sorting order is really much more useful than the old one, but I'd like to hear opinions of our forum members on this.
If you support it, or in case you have any objections or other better ideas, please tell.
If there are no objections, I can make this the default sorting order