---
url: /card-guides/table-filtering-and-sorting.md
description: >-
  How to enable filtering and sorting on a Table component's columns, and the
  requirements each column must meet for it to work.
---

# Filtering and Sorting Tables

The [Table](/card-guides/table.html) component supports built-in filtering and sorting of its columns. Filtering and sorting are configured in two places - a master toggle on the table itself, and individual toggles per column - and both only work if the underlying column instructions are set up correctly.

## 1. Enable Filtering and Sorting on the Table

Select the table's root (the grid icon in the top-left corner of the table) to bring up the table's own properties. Under the **Table** section, set **Enable Filtering** to `Yes`. This single table-level toggle enables both filtering and sorting for the table - there's no separate table-level toggle for sorting.

![Enable Filtering at the table level](/card-guides/table-filter-enable-table-level.png)

:::info
The per-column **Enable Filtering** / **Enable Sorting** toggles (below) are visible and editable regardless of this setting, but neither does anything until this table-level toggle is enabled.
:::

## 2. Enable Filtering and Sorting per Column

Select the top-right corner triangle of a column's header cell to bring up that column's properties. Under the **Table** section you'll find:

* **Enable Filtering** - turns on the filter control for this column
* **Enable Sorting** - turns on click-to-sort for this column
* **Filter Type** - how the column's values should be interpreted for filtering: `string`, `number`, or `date`

![Enable Filtering and Sorting at the column level](/card-guides/table-filter-enable-column-level.png)

![Filter Type options: string, number, date](/card-guides/table-filter-type-options.png)

:::info
**Filter Type** also governs how the column **sorts**, not just how it filters. A `string` type sorts lexicographically (`1, 10, 11, 12, 2, ...`), while `number` sorts numerically (`1, 2, 10, 11, 12, ...`). If a numeric column is sorting oddly, check that its Filter Type is set to `number` rather than `string`.
:::

## 3. One Dimension per Column

Filtering and sorting only work correctly when a column is generated from a **single dimension**. In the column's **Column Instructions** set editor, the instruction should contain only one dimension entry:

![A Column Instructions set with a single dimension](/card-guides/table-filter-single-dimension.png)

:::tip
Multiple **elements** within that one dimension are fine - each element loops out into its own actual column, and each of those columns is individually filterable/sortable.

What breaks filtering is stacking a **second dimension** into the same Column Instructions entry.
:::

## Filtering and Sorting Read from a Direct Cube Reference

Filtering and sorting both read their value from a Text component's **Text property**, and that property needs to be a direct [LINK](/cube-functions/link.html) to a cube and data - e.g. `LINK("Commentary", [])`. This can be set up via the *Insert Data Text* right-click helper, but what actually matters is the `LINK()` formula in the Text property, not the helper itself. If the Text property instead holds a formula, concatenation, or other derived value rather than a direct `LINK()` to a cube, there's nothing for filtering/sorting to read.

### Workaround: filtering on a hidden value

If the value you actually want displayed on the card isn't a direct `LINK()` - for example, an Input component the user interacts with, rather than a Text component - add a second, separate Text component into the same cell whose Text property **is** a direct `LINK()` to that cube's data. Then attach a `hide` [Custom Style](/card-guides/styles.html) (e.g. `display: none`) to that Text component so it's not visually shown, while it still supplies the value filtering/sorting reads from.

In the example below, the visible content of the cell is an Input component. Alongside it sits a hidden Text component (named descriptively, e.g. "Text - link to filtering", so it's easy to identify later) whose Text property holds `LINK("Commentary", [])`, with its **Custom Style** set to `hide`:

![An Input component displayed on the card, alongside a hidden Text component linked to a cube purely to feed filtering](/card-guides/table-filter-hidden-value-example.png)

See [Card Styles](/card-guides/styles.html) for how to build and attach a style like this.