How can I do a multi-level sort in Views?

Question

I have a table format view with multiple columns/fields:

• Date
• Title
• Room

And data that looks like this table (as an example):

| Date | Title | Room |

| 4 June 2016 | Yellow-Green | Apple |

| 4 June 2016 | Sky Blue | Orange |

| 1 June 2016 | Magenta | Apple |

| 4 June 2016 | Yellow-Green | Grape |

I want to sort the data in the table at multiple levels:

1. First by Date in descending order
2. Second by Title in ascending order
3. Third by Room in ascending order

So from the data given, the table would sort in this order:

| Date | Title | Room |

| 4 June 2016 | Sky Blue | Orange |

| 4 June 2016 | Yellow-Green | Apple |

| 4 June 2016 | Yellow-Green | Grape |

| 1 June 2016 | Magenta | Apple |

Please note that the data all still needs to be in a single table, rather than splitting into multiple tables, thank you.

The effect I'm trying to achieve in how it's like in Excel -- wherein you can sort the cells by levels -- for instance, first sort by Column B, then sort by Column D, etc.

How can I achieve this in Drupal 7 views without writing/editing any code?

Thanks very much in advance for any help.

(I've edited this question to hopefully clear things up.)

Answer 1

1. Add all sorting cck fields (date/title/room in this case) to the 'sort criteria' section in Views UI
2. Go write a very easy custom module for yourself. Using only one hook, which is hook_views_query_alter(&$views, &$query)

the .module file looks something like this:

function [MODULE_NAME]_views_query_alter(&$view, &$query) {
  if ($view->name == '[views_name]' && $view->current_display == '[display_name]') {
    $query->orderby = array(
      array(
        'field' => '[first_sort_cck_field_value]',
        'direction' => 'AESC',
      ),
      array(
        'field' => '[second_sort_cck_field_value]',
        'direction' => 'DESC',
      ),
      array(
        'field' => '[third_sort_cck_field_value]',
        'direction' => 'ASC',
      )
   );

//use dsm($query->orderby) to debug if you use Devel module;

  }
}

As an alternative, you can also try follow this post

Good luck :)

Answer 2

In Views, under the "Format" heading you format is already "Table", Click the Settings link, Scroll down until you see "Grouping field Nr.1" and choose date. Then use "Grouping field Nr.2" for the next one.