Why are the elements on my chart in the wrong order?

Every chart uses a Sort Type to decide the order of its elements. When no Sort Type is specified, the chart uses Response Order, which is the order the sections, subsections, questions, or answers appear in your assessment.

The four sort types

In the Merge Manager these are set from Options > Sort Type. Add Order=Asc or Order=Desc (Options > Sort Order) to control the direction. Ascending is the default.

If your elements are in alphabetical order and you did not ask for it

Check the merge string for OrderType=Alpha. Removing that parameter returns the chart to Response Order.

Why alphabetical order can look wrong on numbered labels

Alphabetical sorting compares label text character by character, not as numbers. A set of labels named Belief 1 through Belief 12 will therefore be ordered as:

Belief 1, Belief 10, Belief 11, Belief 12, Belief 2, Belief 3

This is correct alphabetical order, because the character "1" sorts before the character "2". If you require true numeric order on labels of this kind, remove OrderType=Alpha and use Response Order instead, then set the question positions in the Builder to the order you want.

Changing the order of elements in the assessment

Response Order follows the Number/Position field of each section, subsection, question, and answer in the Assessment Builder. To move an element, change its position number. We recommend numbering in steps of ten (10, 20, 30, and so on) so that new elements can be inserted later without renumbering everything.

For full details, see Add and Manage Questions and Answers and Merge Strings Library for Reports and Results.