Sorting Items into Date Folders

Items need to be identifiable to the sorting rule

Ensure that the Items you’d like to put into date folders are “identifiable” and “sortable”

  • They all appear beneath a single place in the Content Tree
  • They all are of the same Data Template or
  • They all descend from a common ancestor Data Template
  • There needs to be an Author-modifiable Date or Date Time field on the Data Template of the sortable Item.

You’ll need facts like these to craft your rules.

The collection of Sorted Items will need a specified location in the content tree

The date folders will be created beneath a “root” Item, which serves the following purposes:

  • Tells the Rule where to build the alphabetical folders for sorting
  • Hosts the Insert Option to allow Authors to create Items that will then be sorted.

Specifics:

  • The Root Item should be of a different Template than the Items that are to be sorted to prevent Rule confusion.
  • The Root Item needs an Insert Option for the sortable Item, otherwise Authors will not be able to create items.
  • The Root Item needs to be of a different Template than the “folders” that will be used to organize the items.

Example:

Consider a list of Press Releases that need to be stored by date. The root Item is of the Template “Press Room” while the Press Releases themselves are of the Template “Press Release”. The date folders used to organize Press Release Items are of the simple “Common/Folder” Template.

You need to specify the Template to use for the Date folders

The folders themselves do not need to be Pages and thus need no presentation details. Because the “Root Item” is used to create new sortable Items, the folders also do not need (and should not have) Insert Options. Note that you only need one type of Folder defined, even if you choose to add multiple layers, such as a year/month/day structure.

Setting up the Rule

Once you have the Root Item configured and in-place on the Content Tree, the Template for the Items you’re sorting, and have selected a Folder template, you can configure the rule.

  1. Navigate to the appropriate Item Saved rule group in System/Settings.
  2. Insert a new Rule.
  3. Configure your Condition to identify the sortable Item.
  4. Configure your Action to sort the Item on save using the Folder template you’ve chosen.

In our example above, we will be sorting Press Releases by the Release Date field, using plain Folders for the dates, which will include a Folder level for Year and a Folder level for Month.

Here’s what the result looks like:

Recap

  1. Create the Template that needs to be sorted.
  2. Create the Template that will serve as the “root” of the sorted content.
  3. Create the “root Item” in your site, make sure its Insert Options includes the Template that you want sorted.
  4. Create the Rule that will perform the sorting.
  5. Try it out!