Sorting and Grouping in QUERY

Filtering shows you the right rows, but real reports need order and totals. QUERY handles both with two more SQL-style clauses: ORDER BY and GROUP BY.

With these you can answer questions like which region sells the most or list deals from biggest to smallest, all in one formula.

The ORDER BY clause sorts your results by one or more columns. It goes after WHERE (if present).

By default it sorts ascending (smallest first, A to Z). This formula lists every row sorted by sales from low to high.

Add DESC after the column to sort from highest to lowest. Use ASC to be explicit about ascending.

This shows your biggest sales first, perfect for a top performers list. Pair it with LIMIT to get a clean top 3.

List several columns in ORDER BY, separated by commas, to break ties. Sheets sorts by the first column, then uses the next to order rows that match.

Here results are grouped by region alphabetically, and within each region the highest sales come first.

GROUP BY collapses rows that share a value into a single summary row. It is how you build totals per category.

To use it, your SELECT combines the grouping column with an aggregate function like SUM, COUNT, or AVG applied to another column.

This formula totals sales for each region. SUM(D) adds the Sales column, and GROUP BY A produces one row per region.

The result is a mini pivot table: East with its total, West with its total, all from a single function.

Swap in COUNT to count rows instead of summing. This tells you how many deals each region closed.

You can use COUNT(D) to count non-empty sales cells, giving a quick row tally per group.

Use AVG for the mean value in each group. Here we get the average deal size per region.

You can even mix aggregates: select both SUM(D) and AVG(D) in the same query to show total and average side by side.

A common error: each column in SELECT that is not wrapped in an aggregate must appear in GROUP BY.

SELECT A, B, SUM(D) GROUP BY A fails because B is neither aggregated nor grouped. Either group by both, or drop B from the select list.

Combine the clauses to rank your summary. After grouping, sort by the aggregate to put the biggest group on top.

This lists each region with its total sales, ordered from highest total to lowest, a ready-made leaderboard.

Grouped columns get ugly headers like sum Sales. Add a LABEL clause to rename them for a polished report.

This renames the total column to Total Sales. The label text uses single quotes, just like filter values.

Check your grasp of sorting and grouping.

You can now shape QUERY results:

• ORDER BY col [ASC|DESC] sorts, with extra columns to break ties
• GROUP BY plus SUM, COUNT, or AVG builds per-category summaries
• Non-aggregated selected columns must be in GROUP BY
• LABEL renames aggregate headers

One formula now produces a sorted, grouped, labeled report.