Why am I no longer able to sort a task report alphabetically by Assignee?
Asked by Brooke:

We use the task report to track certain action items for a team. In the past I was able to sort by assignee. Now none of the columns I have will sort in any sort of order (random out of sequence due dates vs. being able to sort by oldest to newest or vice versa; assignees cannot be sorted in any type of alphabetical order). There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the sorting functionality now, and it wasn't like that in the past. Any idea how to fix this?


Answers:
author: Katerina Rudkovskaya [Stiltsoft]
body: Hello,

We can recommend you to try our app - [Table Filter and Charts for Confluence:](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/27447/table-filter-and-charts-for-confluence?hosting=cloud&tab=overview)

Please wrap your Task Report macro into the [Table Filter](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/display/public/TFAC/How+to+use+Table+Filter+macro) macro and apply different kinds of [sorting](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/display/public/TFAC/Sorting%2C+freezing+and+other+table+viewing+options "https://docs.stiltsoft.com/display/public/TFAC/Sorting%2C+freezing+and+other+table+viewing+options").

<br />

![2020-07-27_18h08_21.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/104438iB26A87B0CCDB8B40/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2020-07-27_18h08_21.png")![2020-07-27_18h08_06.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/104439iD71895CD7D64548F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2020-07-27_18h08_06.png")  

Best regards,  
Katerina  
Stiltsoft


author: Robert Yu
body: Thank you [@Clarence Duryea](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3980473) for the work-around.  
Has the table sort function been fixed? It seems this is a problem for other tables too. Kind of a blocker for productivity.

comments: author: Clarence Duryea
body: You are very welcome! I unfortunately do not know the answer to that question.


author: John Tolle
body: Unfortunately, the answer is no, it has not been fixed yet. [@Robert Yu](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3547835) provided a link to the backlogged issue:

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67965>

What's really frustrating about backlogged issues is that you can no longer vote for, watch, or comment on them so there is no way to inform Atlassian that we have an interest in this issue.


author: Kurt Klinner
body: [@Brooke](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2231692)

Hi Brooke

just had a quick look to my confluence cloud instance

within the properties of the tas report macro there is still the option to specfiy a sort order

![Screenshot 2020-02-05 at 22.00.53.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/81858i5FC66AAE52492466/image-dimensions/530x327?v=v2 "Screenshot 2020-02-05 at 22.00.53.png")

Hope that helps

Cheers

Kurt

comments: author: Brooke
body: [@Kurt Klinner](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/734136) now if only it would actually sort that way, I'd be golden...but it doesn't. That's the problem :) No matter what settings I choose, the list sorts randomly and not in any particular order I can identify.


author: Isobel Lindsay
body: Hello Brooke,

I have exactly the same problem - did you ever get an answer?

Isobel


author: Brooke
body: Hi [@Isobel Lindsay](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3967679)

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a solution for this. [@Kurt Klinner](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/734136) 's answer is what \*should\* be happening, and what was happening at one point, but this isn't what happens now on my instance. The sorting feature seems to be broken as there is no rhyme or reason to the order the information comes up. I've tried deleting and adding the macro back, to no avail.

Sorry I don't have better news!

Best,

B


author: V T
body: Cool, I'm not the only one who can't figure this out! :)

Sort by assignee doesn't work indeed.

I actually wanted to understand how to filter just the unassigned task, but that's also impossible.


author: Brooke
body: This has been a big pain point for us because it renders the task list useless. The point was to have an easy way for my team to follow up on outstanding items. No one wants to scroll through 100 tabs of action items to find which randomly listed ones apply to them. Our process was based on the assumption the team could sort either by date or by the assignee.


author: Clarence Duryea
body: I stumbled upon something you may find interesting... It's a solution I found helpful for our situation. Basically you can bundle Action Items per team member. That way they can go straight to their AI's. You can specify only to show 10 AI's under each persons name (So they can scroll through their own AI's). Is it the best solution, no... and it can take a while to setup if you have a lot of team members... but it may work for you! I'll let you decide. Link: <http://lightmanyfires.com/create-team-task-report-page-confluence/>

PS: you can copy and paste profile pictures and the task report then just edit the assignee to make life easier. And you can make a template for entering in new team members later. Hope this helps!


author: Brooke
body: [@Clarence Duryea](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3980473) THANK YOU! This is amazing. I just built out a page for my team. Thank goodness for workarounds!


author: V T
body: Went with the same approach as [@Clarence Duryea](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3980473) yet it leaves one gap: unassigned tasks can get lost if there is a large number of assigned tasks. Did not figure out a good way to filter for just the unassigned tasks.


author: Laura Rusenstrom
body: [@Clarence Duryea](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3980473) Just wanted to drop a thank-you!! I and my team are very new to Confluence, and I've been struggling to find a way to display their tasks that's easy for them to use and work with. This is a beautiful yet simple approach, and really user friendly (for both the person building the page and the people using the page).


author: Clarence Duryea
body: [@V T](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2273838) Maybe this workaround for showing unassigned tasks will help: <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Filter-out-unassigned-tasks-from-the-task-report/qaq-p/1000735>


author: Robert Yu
body: There is a backlog ticket associated with this problem:

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67965>

It has been assigned low priority with no target date for fixing. Maybe  
more people can ask for this fix. It's been sitting around since 2019.


Tags: confluence-cloud