Excel - Sorting based on metric values - excel

Question

I have a dataset which looks like:
Product Metrics C1 C2 C3
A1 Q1 20 30 10
Q2 213123 2312 32123
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
A2 Q1 10 5 1
Q2 123 13 23
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
A3 Q1 18 6 3
Q2 123 13 23
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
Now I want to sort the values based on metric Q1 - From smallest to largest (comparing against the product -A1,A2) then the final dataset should look like,
Product Metrics C1 C2 C3
A2 Q1 10 5 1
Q2 123 13 23
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
A3 Q1 18 6 3
Q2 123 13 23
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
A1 Q1 20 30 10
Q2 213123 2312 32123
Q3 454 65 45
Q4 3 4 6
hope this gives a clear picture. Thanks in advance guys

Answer 1

The way I would probably do it is transpose your columns and rows so that you have columns for Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
Like this:
Product Metrics Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
A1 C1 20 213123 454 3
A1 C2 30 2312 65 4
A1 C3 10 32123 45 6
A2 C1 10 123 454 3
A2 C2 5 13 65 45
A2 C3 1 23 45 6
Then you can sort by Q1 using Data>Sort & Filter

Answer 2

CBRF23 already pointed in the right direction but I believe you have to go even a little bit further and flatten each product related sub-array into a single row like
A | B C D | E F G | H I J | K L M
---| Q1 --------| Q2 ------------ | Q3 ------- | Q4 -------
Pr | C1 C2 C3 | C1 C2 C3 | C1 C2 C3 | C1 C2 C3
A1 | 20 30 10 | 213123 2312 32123 | 454 65 45 | 3 4 6
A2 | 10 5 1 | 123 13 23 | 454 65 45 | 3 4 6
A3 | 18 6 3 | 123 13 23 | 454 65 45 | 3 4 6
(The first row just shows the Excel columns, second row the flattened Q1,Q2,Q3 and Q4 sections and third row the sub-headers for each column)
Now you can safely sort by column B. In case you want to sort by the sum of all Q1 metrics you could introduce another column N being the sum of B,C and D and use that for sorting.
Update:
To get your desired output format back there are basically to possibilities:
If the number of records is known and fixed you can set-up a "results" page in your excel folder with a list of small "sub-tables". The fields of each sub-array then directly reference the "transposed" fields in a line of the sorted master results array.
If the number of results is variable you will have to construct/reconstruct the results page mentioned above using a suitable vba script. The vba generated page can of course also consist of the sorted values directly rather than referencing the values in the sorted master array.