Hi David,

two things might alter the table that way:

• your work packages tables has hierarchy-mode enabled. That means that the filter also takes the parent-child relations into account. [1]
• there could be a different column you also automatically sort by. You can check this via the work package table configuration. [2]

Please try whether the table looks like you need by switching to a flat list first. The relations do not get lost. They are just not displayed then.

Best

Alexander

[1] https://www.openproject.org/docs/user-guide/work-packages/work-package-table-configuration/#flat-list-hierarchy-mode-and-group-by
[2] https://www.openproject.org/docs/user-guide/work-packages/work-package-table-configuration/#automatic-sorting-of-the-work-package-table

Hi, Alex,

Yes. My work package table has hierarchy-mode enabled.

I am confused on the logic behind the sorting with hierarchy mode.

In this page #1, it seems the rule is: they are sorted per first item in one "bag" and keep items in same bag together. Because #192 < #189 < #180 #177 < #186, so it sort #170, #172, #166, #165, #168 in this way regardless their own finish date. It kinda keeps hierarchy, which explains, for example, #193 is in front of #198 even its finish date is later.

However, it keeps some items in one page but split other items into another page:

I can't understand why items #188 & #273 are moved to the second page, although they belong to same parent #168 as #186 & 187. It is not because #186 & #187 are closed, as same thing happens for #194 in 2nd page but #192 #193 in the 1st page. 

Also, in the second page, it seems they are not sorted per the first item in the hierarchy bag either. You can see the finish date of #179, #297, #188 are not ascending. 

Here is my sort setting:

Can you explain?

Thanks,

David

thank you for sharing...

NCEDCloud login

Any feedback from OpenProject team?

I found even with default sorting by ID, it will split the hierarchical items to different pages.

My suggestion is, to keep hierarchy and sort per item with deepest hierarchy level.

Because manual sort will only work for less than 250 items. I wonder what OpenProject team suggest users for a hierarchy view.

In OpenProject, auto-sort functionality allows you to automatically organize work packages based on specific criteria. For example, you can set the work packages to be sorted by finish date in ascending order. However, there might be certain limitations or issues when using auto-sort, especially if there are specific configurations or custom fields involved. As per a discussion in the OpenProject Community, a user reported confusion regarding the sorting order when using auto-sort by finish date.

Additionally, there has been a feature request for automatic sorting in the board view, indicating that previously, only manual sorting was available in that view, and users were seeking functionality similar to the list view.

For Gantt charts specifically, OpenProject has automatic and manual scheduling modes, where automatic scheduling is the default. The automatic scheduling mode allows tasks to be scheduled based on their dependencies and the project timeline. However, there have been discussions about limitations in sorting when hierarchy mode and pagination are activated, which could affect how auto-sort functions in the Gantt view.

To use auto-sort effectively, it's important to be aware of these nuances and check the latest updates or community discussions for any improvements or changes to the feature.

I got hint from your reply and found the issue was with pagination. Any official setting to turn off pagination in WP list page?

I took a workaround to set a large number of WP per page in setting, and now my page seemed ok. 

Current logic is a little bit confusing. I'll suggest just run the same logic as single page firstly and then break them into multiple pages.

I did a search and only found one feature request:

https://community.openproject.org/projects/openproject/work_packages/30480/activity

but I didn't find many discussion on the sorting logic. Please point me to those discussions so that I can better use this auto-sort function.

As I said in last post, manual sort has an upper limit of 250 items. That's not really a good option.

In case anyone finds this forum thread like I did, the related feature request to upvote is: https://community.openproject.org/projects/openproject/work_packages/34925/activity