# Sorting Lists in Reports **URL:** \ **Category:** Dashboards & Reporting\ **Tags:** reports, lists\ **Created:** [August 6, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584 "2025-08-06T20:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mousse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@Mousse](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Mousse)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/1 "2025-08-06T20:48:03Z")
Hello, I am trying to improve some of our lead reporting. I discovered that I can report based on list membership which will allow us to take advantage of using OR statements (as the basis of list enrollment) for this which is great! However, in building the report based on list membership I’m having a tough time figuring out how to properly sort the columns of our vertical bar chart. Basically we have lists representing each individual month for the past ~5 years & each list will be represented as a column in the bar chart. I need to sort these chronologically. Any creative workarounds to this?? Only thing I can think of would be naming the lists with a sequential numeral in front & sorting based on ascending values but I don’t want to do this unless it is my only option. ---
**Author:** ![STierney](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/stierney/32/186066_2.png) [@STierney](https://community.hubspot.com/u/STierney)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:20pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/2 "2025-08-06T21:20:30Z")
Hey @Mousse - thanks for posting in the Community! I definitely understand the need here, and I think you’re onto something with your proposal of naming lists with a sequential numbering system. In an effort to collaborate further, though, and ensure we’re not missing anything, I’d like to tag in some of our Community experts to see if there are any other workarounds. @louischausse, @NicoleSengers, and @StjepanGrcic - any insight on how we may be able to achieve @Mousse’s goal of creating a Leads-based report that reflects list membership in chronological order? ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 3:54am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/3 "2025-08-07T03:54:03Z")
Hi @Mousse, HubSpot limits how lists can be used in report visualizations. To confirm that what you’re trying to do is not possible directly, could you please share a screenshot of your report configuration? In general, as what I would consider best practice, I would recommend documenting the information you want to use for breakdown or sorting in a record property and not rely on list membership. Using a workflow, or bulk editing manually, you would make sure that every record gets their value corresponding to list membership. HubSpot then gives you the full options for breakdown, sorting and the likes. It also means that you can work with this property more flexibly in general. Best regards! ---
**Author:** ![Mousse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@Mousse](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Mousse)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:51pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/4 "2025-08-07T12:51:04Z")
Hmmm. I definitely would _prefer_ to report based on a property. That is how we have always done this reporting. The issue is that we basically have to pick between two date dimensions to report on. One that populates with the first time a contact converts but doesn’t update to reflect a reconversion. Or one that populates the most recent time a contact converts. Neither of these are ideal as we would like to account for reconversions without it removing that conversion from its original month (& avoid double counting reconversions within the same month). With list membership I can have the best of both worlds & not have to worry about double counting. I guess an alternative would be to create individual properties corresponding with each month & have workflows populate those properties (based on list membership or just the other date dimensions) but my concern is that this would be a bigger ongoing lift (a new property would need to be created + the workflow updated each month rather than just clone a list & make a simple adjustment). Unless I’m not considering a different method of using a contact property to do this. Here is how the report is set up. Only created a few of the lists so far just to test this. ![Screenshot 2025-08-07 074810.png](https://d2qpr2jzcazej7.cloudfront.net/original/3X/8/1/8134af2e551e3469c090f339397f76769850d18c.png) Thanks for your input Karsten. It is appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:56pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/5 "2025-08-07T12:56:41Z")
@Mousse could you explain what exactly you want to visualize? Without referencing HubSpots – “I would like a chart with … on the x-axis, … on the y-axis, broken down by …” It sounds like you’re trying to visualize conversions. Keep in mind that these are automatically flattened into the contact. If a contact converts multiple times, they would still only show once in your report. The only way to currently work around this would be a custom object where each contact form submission creates a record. ---
**Author:** ![Mousse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@Mousse](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Mousse)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/6 "2025-08-07T13:02:16Z")
Conversions yes. X-axis is months (in this case lists but each list being populated with the conversions from that month), Y-axis is count. The breakdown isn’t really an issue (just the type of form submission but that hasn’t given me any problems either way). I understand that they only show once. That is ostensibly what I am trying to correct for. We somewhat regularly have leads convert multiple times in separate months & we would like this report to reflect all conversions for that month whether they were a first time conversion or a reconversion (without double counting reconversions in the same month). So basically the ability to count the same contact multiple times IF that contact converts in multiple months. This is why basing it off list membership solves that problem, however I can’t seem to sort the report correctly using list membership (only by name or count). ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:05pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/7 "2025-08-07T13:05:43Z")
@Mousse if that’s how you want to solve it (and not via a custom object), then by far the easiest solution to me seems to change your date naming convention to something that works alphabetically (which I would generally consider a best practice). Instead of 1/2024, simply rename to 2024-01. ---
**Author:** ![Mousse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@Mousse](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Mousse)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 7:22pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/8 "2025-08-07T19:22:55Z")
> * * * > > Instead of 1/2024, simply rename to 2024-01. > > * * * Unfortunately this isn’t going to work either as it ends up sorting it 2024-1, 2024-10, 2024-11, 2024-12, 2024-2… But if that is the best we have to work with, I guess I will figure something out. Appreciate the suggestions regardless! ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/sorting-lists-in-reports/137584/9 "2025-08-07T19:30:12Z")
@Mousse 2024-1 will not sort correctly, yes, but 2024- **0** 1 will. Just make sure you have that leading 0 on single digit months.