OrderBy Property

Applies to

Form Object
Report Object

You can use the OrderBy property to specify how you want to sort records in a form, query, report, or table. Read/write String.

expression.OrderBy

expression Required. An expression that returns one of the objects in the Applies To list.

Remarks

The OrderBy property is a string expression that is the name of the field or fields on which you want to sort records. When you use more than one field name, separate the names with a comma (,). Use the OrderBy property to save an ordering value and apply it at a later time. OrderBy values are saved with the objects in which they are created. They are automatically loaded when the object is opened, but they aren't automatically applied.

When you set the OrderBy property by entering one or more field names, the records are sorted in ascending order. Similarly, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code sorts these fields in ascending order by default.

If you want to sort records in descending order, type DESC at the end of the string expression. For example, to sort customer records in descending order by contact name, set the OrderBy property to "ContactName DESC".

You can set the OrderBy property by using the object's property sheet, a macro, or VBA.

For reports, the OrderByOn property must be set to Yes to apply the sort order specified by the object's OrderBy property. For forms, select the field by which you want to sort the records, and on the Home tab, in the Sort & Filter group, click the sort order you want. You can also set the OrderByOn property for either forms or reports by using VBA.

Setting the OrderBy property for an open report will run the report's Close and Open event procedures.

Note: When a new object is created, it inherits the RecordSource , Filter , OrderBy, and OrderByOn properties of the table or query it was created from. For forms and reports, inherited filters aren't automatically applied when an object is opened.