SQL Order By Clause

Immediate If (IIF) Order By Clause in Access Queries

Create a dynamic query order by clause using the iif (immediate if) statement to change the 'Order By' statement in a query based on user input.  There are many instances where you would like to sort a form or report on different fields depending on a user's selection.

The following is an SQL example of an Access dynamic query Order By clause.   This example assumes you have a form ('F_Emp') with an Option Group ('Sort_Option') with two possible choices.  Option 1 is for sorting by employee name and option 2 is for sorting by employee number.   Variable sorting can be accomplished in the Report however it is much more efficient to put this in the SQL code.

Select M_Employees.Name, M_Employees.Emp_Number, M_Employees.Address
From M_Employees
Order by
IIf(Forms!F_Emp!Sort_Option=1, M_Employees.Emp_Name, M_Employees.Emp_Number);

An alternative form of the Access Order By is the SQL order by ordinal numbers.  Ordinals are numbers that refer to the fields in the select clause.  Example: ordinal 1 refers to M_Employees.Name, and ordinal 2 refers to M_Employees.Emp_Number. IIf(Forms!F_Emp!Sort_Option=1, 1, 2); This form of the IIf clause is very useful when you need to nest IIf clauses because of more than two sort choices.

The immediate if (IIF) statement can also be used to create dynamic where query statements.

More SQL Order By Examples:

Select Top in Access

Access Choose Function Example

Choose Function Access Dynamic Query

Concatenate Records Text Field