Sort order determines the order in which data is presented in a report. There are two components to sort order:

Sort sequence is the order in which the columns are sorted. You designate one column as the primary sort column. For instance, in a report of employees, you could designate the Lastname column as the primary sort column so that the report can be sorted according to last name.

You can designate additional columns as subordinate sort columns. Subordinate sort columns sort data within each sort value of the primary sort column. For example, if the primary sort column is Zipcode and the secondary sort column is Lastname, all of the data rows containing zip code 00001 are presented first. Within the 00001 group, the data rows are sorted by the alphabetic order of the names in the Lastname column.

If you do not specify a sort order, data appears in the report in whatever order it was stored in the table, view, or JoinDef on which the report is based.