Line graph date sorting and formatting

Question

Hi Gurus
We've recently upgraded to 11.1.1.7 and noticed that our Publisher line charts with date on the x-axis are no longer sorting correctly i.e. May comes before March. The reason for this is because in <11.1.1.7 we have a formatted date mask (to_char) in our data model but sorted by the underlying canonical date which worked. Now in 11.1.1.7 it is no longer sorting by the data model sort but by the formatted date string therefore numeric values of 30 April sorted after 1 May.
We have tried a number of options to resolve:
1. using the canonical date and sorting on that corrects the sort problem but the default formatting used in long YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00-00:00 and not readable as our chart is showing daily totals. Changing to time-series chart can allow you to format the date but see problem 2 next...
2. Time series = yes doesn't display the chart if we have a number of entities in our series i.e. multiple lines and the interactive viewer shows a red error icon. I think this may be due to the fact that our date range is not continuous ie we have a sparse data set.
3. Workaround we used was a bar chart (our users preference is line charts) with time series = false but the date format is still long.
Any advice / suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks
Nick.

Answer 1

for #1: numbers does what is called a "stable" sort. Meaning that the previous sort order is preserved. i.e. do your sort in reverse order. Amount, then name, then date. Just did it with sample data and it was perfect. It keeps them in the original order, so if there is a match in name after you sort, you should see the amount still in the proper order.
#2: What in your formula isnt working? I just made a formula that did math on the columns to the left, sorted and it worked. Sorted by static data columns and the formula column. I know it was broken originally, years ago, but it seems to be working correctly now, at least in my quick test. You might have an issue if you are using formulas that refer to data on other rows or tables.
#3: yeah formatting can be a pain. But it is easier to do in the desktop program. No, you cannot get it for windows, sorry. If the formatting the only thing you need to do on the desktop side, then i dont see much tying you to it. I do 90% or more on the ipad and iphone now.
Jason