Projetcs module | Empty fields sorted as if they were data

Hello again,

I have another issue with the Projects module. In table view, I can sort columns by data value, which is very convenient, but if some values were left blank in the project details (say, due date, as it may not be known yet), those empty values are part of the sorting and take precedence over “real”, populated values. This creates long, empty lists before actual data shows up if many fields were left blank for several entries.

For example, this is what my projects table looks like when I try to sort “due date” in ascending order (I have 42 projects in the table for now, and it will keep growing over the course of the year, so I have to scroll through many pages of empty results):

Page 1, completely empty:

Page 2, completely empty:

Page 3, first projects with actual data in the table start to show up:

Is there a way to make it so that blank data is always sorted at the bottom?

Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, we’ll look into it.

Actually, sorry… not sure this can be changed. The blank values would need to be at the top or bottom of the list.

The blank values would need to be at the top or bottom of the list.

Could you make it so that they always appear at the bottom, then?

Edit: so when sorting through say, dates, descending or ascending, only dates will show up at the top, since this is what is expected to be sorted. The empty values would appear at the bottom, having no incidence to the sorting of the actual data.

I don’t believe this is the expected behavior, it would make it hard to see the blank values.

Hmm indeed. Maybe adding an option when sorting columns to show empty values at the bottom would do the trick?

BTW, this also happens on other table views, like in the Clients module: for example, when the Contact Name is is sorted by ascending values, empty tables take precedence to the actual contact names. That may be of some use in some cases where one would need to check which fields are empty, but I expect most of the users would expect to see the names get sorted by default, not empty fields :slight_smile:

Feel free to create an issue on GitHub to request the change:

1 Like