Cannot Access Subform Display Order in Deluge

Cannot Access Subform Display Order in Deluge

As highlighted in this community post, we still have to deal with the significant limitation of not being able to access the user-sorted order of subform rows through Deluge. This creates a major disconnect between the UI capabilities and backend automation, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update.

The Issue
Zoho Creator now offers two distinct subform sorting methods:
  • Drag and drop: Manual, user-controlled sorting where users reorder rows by dragging them into their preferred sequence. The sort order is arbitrary and based on user preference, not field values.
  • By predefined column: Automatic, system-controlled sorting based on a specified column that happens whenever the record is created or updated. The sort order is predictable and based on field values.
However, these sorted orders are completely invisible to Deluge scripts. When you iterate through subform rows using for each loops, you get the records in their original creation order—regardless of whether the subform uses drag-and-drop sorting or automatic column-based sorting.

The Problem
Regardless of which sorting method is configured, the display order is trapped in the UI layer—Deluge has no way to access it.
Sorting Method What User Sees What Deluge Sees Result
Drag and Drop
User drags Row 5 to position 1		 Row 5 appears at the top of the subform Row 5 is still in position 5 (creation order) ✗ Custom order completely ignored
Predefined Column
Subform set to sort by "Priority" (High to Low)		 Rows automatically displayed in priority order after save Original creation order (Row 1, Row 2, Row 3...) ✗ Automatic sorting not reflected
Either Method
User clicks "Generate Report" button		 Expects report to match displayed order Report generated in creation order ✗ Output doesn't match user's view
Current Limitations
Regardless of which sorting method is enabled, you cannot:
  • Loop through subform rows in the display order (whether drag-and-drop or predefined column)
  • Access any "sort order" or "display position" field
  • Determine which column is used for automatic sorting
  • Detect if drag-and-drop sorting is enabled
  • Update a field (like "Sequence Number") to reflect the sorted order
  • Generate custom reports in Pages or Deluge that respect the subform's display order
Important Note: Record Templates do preserve the re-sorted order when generating PDFs or documents. This means basic reporting through record templates works correctly. However, for any advanced reporting—such as custom HTML in Deluge, Pages, or programmatic data processing—the sorted order is completely inaccessible, making it impossible to replicate what record templates can do.
Example: The Disconnect
Here's a real-world scenario that demonstrates the problem: 
// SCENARIO: Task subform is configured to sort by "Priority" column (High to Low)
// This is automatic sorting - happens when record is created/updated
// User clicks a button to "Generate Prioritized Task List"

// What the developer writes:
for each task in input.Task_Subform
{
    task_list = task_list + task.Task_Name + "\n";
}

// EXPECTED OUTPUT (what user sees on screen after save):
// 1. Fix critical bug (High)
// 2. Review code (High)  
// 3. Update documentation (Medium)
// 4. Refactor old code (Low)

// ACTUAL OUTPUT (what Deluge produces):
// 1. Update documentation (Medium)     ← Created first
// 2. Fix critical bug (High)           ← Created second  
// 3. Refactor old code (Low)           ← Created third
// 4. Review code (High)                ← Created fourth

// Result: User confusion and loss of trust in the system
// Note: The same problem occurs with drag-and-drop sorting!
Impact: The generated output doesn't match what the user sees on screen, creating confusion and undermining user confidence. This affects both automatic sorting (by predefined column) and manual sorting (drag-and-drop).
Attempted Workarounds (All Inadequate)
Workaround Approach Implementation Problems Status
Manual Sequence Field Add a "Sequence" number field that users manually update - Requires users to manually type numbers
- Defeats purpose of drag-and-drop sorting
- Doesn't work with predefined column sorting
- Prone to errors and gaps
- Poor user experience 		✗ Not viable for real-world use
Sort in Deluge Instead Use Deluge's .sort() function on subform collection - Only works if you know the predefined sort column
- Cannot replicate custom drag-and-drop order at all
- Assumes single-column sorting
- Doesn't help if user needs multi-column sort
- Still a workaround for what should be automatic 		⚠ Partial solution for predefined column only
JavaScript Widget Build custom UI using JavaScript Widget instead of native form - Requires abandoning native form entirely
- Must rebuild entire subform interface from scratch
- Significant development and maintenance overhead
- Loses all native form features and functionality
- Defeats the purpose of using Creator's built-in forms 		✗ Not viable - abandons native functionality
What Should Happen Instead
Proposed Solution 1: Display Order Field Add a system-generated field that reflects the current display order: 
for each task in input.Task_Subform.sortBy("display_order")
{
    // Process tasks in the order the user sees them
    info task.Task_Name;
}
Proposed Solution 2: Sort State Information Provide access to the current sort configuration and type: 
sort_info = input.Task_Subform.getSortState();
// Returns: 
// {"type": "predefined_column", "column": "Priority", "direction": "desc"}
// or {"type": "drag_and_drop"}

if(sort_info.get("type") == "drag_and_drop")
{
    // Drag-and-drop enabled, access via display_order
    sorted_tasks = input.Task_Subform.sortBy("display_order");
}
else if(sort_info.get("type") == "predefined_column")
{
    // Predefined column sorting, replicate that sort
    sorted_tasks = input.Task_Subform.sortBy(sort_info.get("column"), sort_info.get("direction"));
}
else
{
    // No sorting configured, use creation order
    sorted_tasks = input.Task_Subform;
}
Proposed Solution 3: Built-in Sort Preservation Automatically update a hidden "display_sequence" field whenever the display order changes (whether through predefined column sorting or drag-and-drop), making it accessible to Deluge: 
// System automatically maintains display_sequence field for both sorting methods
for each task in input.Task_Subform.sortBy("display_sequence")
{
    // Always iterates in display order
    // Works regardless of sorting method (predefined column or drag-and-drop)
    info task.Task_Name;
}
Any of these solutions would bridge the gap between UI capabilities and backend automation for both sorting methods.
Real-World Impact
This limitation affects critical business processes:
  • Project Management (Predefined Column): Subform automatically sorts tasks by priority, but automated status reports generate in creation order, not priority order
  • Meeting Agendas (Drag and Drop): Users arrange agenda items manually via drag-and-drop, but generated PDF shows items in original entry order
  • Invoice Line Items (Drag and Drop): Users reorder line items for presentation purposes, but printed invoices ignore the arrangement
  • Course Curriculum (Predefined Column or Drag and Drop): Instructors order lessons logically (either by lesson number or manual arrangement), but student-facing materials display in database order
  • Checklist Applications (Predefined Column): Subform automatically sorts by due date or priority, but automated reminders follow original creation order
  • Product Catalogs (Drag and Drop): Users arrange products by preference or featured status, but exports and integrations ignore the curation

User Experience Impact: Whether using predefined column sorting (automatic) or drag-and-drop sorting (manual), when users see data in a particular order on screen and the system's automation ignores it, it creates frustration and erodes trust. Users expect that if they can see data in a certain order, the system should be able to work with it in that order.

Request to Zoho Team

Can this be addressed in a future update?

This is a fundamental disconnect between what users see in the UI and what developers can access in code. Both sorting methods (predefined column and drag-and-drop) suffer from this limitation. The current implementation forces developers to choose between:

1. Disable Sorting
Remove sorting capabilities (both predefined column and drag-and-drop) to avoid user confusion when automation doesn't respect display order 		2. Accept Mismatch
Allow users to sort but acknowledge that automation will produce unexpected results

Neither option is acceptable for professional applications.

Community Input Requested: Has anyone else encountered this limitation or found a reliable workaround? This affects any application where subform ordering matters to end users.



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Tip of the week #28: Show/ hide, enable/ disable and empty/ delete your calendars in Zoho Calendar.

                                    The popularity of online calendars has soared in recent years. It's used both for personal and professional reasons. Calendars have evolved into an effective productivity tool in our lives, from creating events for birthdays and anniversaries to scheduling

                                  • Tip of the week #30: Share calendars publicly in Zoho Calendar.

                                    In Zoho Calendar, calendars that are created under My Calendars can be shared publicly. Making your calendar public allows others to view it. When you need to share your calendar with a larger group, public sharing can help. You can restrict others from

                                  • Tip of the week #31: Share your personal calendars within organization.

                                    Keep your Organization members aware of what's happening. In Zoho Calendar, you can share your personal calendar with all the members in your organization using the Share with org option.When you enable org sharing for a particular personal calendar,

                                  • Tip of the Week #33: Appointment scheduler in Zoho Calendar.

                                    In Zoho Calendar, you can use the Schedule Appointment option to share your appointment request form with the public, allowing people to fill out the form to request an appointment with you. This form can be embedded on your website or blog. Visitors

                                  • Tip of the Week #34: Embed Calendars using Zoho Calendar

                                    You can make your calendars public and visible to the general public by embedding them in your websites/blogs using Zoho Calendar. You can use the embed code to add your own calendars to your website's/ blog's HTML code, and the calendar will appear on

                                  • Tip of the week #35: Migrate to Zoho Calendar from Google Calendar.

                                    If you are looking to move your Google Calendar events to Zoho Calendar, never worry about missing out the events from your Google Calendar. You can migrate the events from Google Calendar using the export option and import it to Zoho Calendar and manage

                                  • Tip of the week #36: Migrate to Zoho Calendar from Outlook Calendar.

                                    If you've been using Outlook calendar and looking to migrate to Zoho Calendar, you can seamlessly export your calendars from Outlook and import them into Zoho Calendar without losing any events, participants, and the reminders set for each event. To migrate

                                  • Shared calendar issues and duplications

                                    Apparently there was a calendar update?  Now when I schedule an event for a team member that has shared his calendar with me, the event makes me the organizer and adds the event to my calendar as well.  Previous to this "update" I would scheduled an event

                                  • Subscribed Calendar

                                    Hi i have subscribed to a calendar for Holidays in Canada it shows all the holidays perfectly but every one of them has the word Canada before the rest of the name is there a way to remove that word Canada? It takes up a lot of space in the square on

                                  • The year that was at Zoho Calendar 2023- Part 1

                                    Hello, amazing community members! Happy new year from all of us here at Zoho Calendar. As we begin the new year, we'd like to thank each and everyone of our community members for your unwavering support and love that you have shown for Zoho Calendar.

                                  • Zoho Calendar 2024: A Year in Review

                                    Hello, community members! Happy new year from all of us here at Zoho Calendar. As we turn the page to a new year, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to every member of our Zoho Calendar community for your continued support and enthusiasm. Your feedback

                                  • Zoho Calendar not syncing correctly with personal Google Calendar

                                    Coming to this forum as Zoho Calendar support team is not responding, any more. For the past 8 weeks, I have been having an issue with Zoho Calendar not syncing with my personal Google Calendar correctly. I subscribed to Zoho Calendar iCal in my personal

                                  • MTA - BAD IP reputation by outlook/hotmail

                                    Messages to Microsoft email servers are bouncing back due to poor reputation. Message: 4.7.650 The mail server [136.143.188.206] has been temporarily rate limited due to IP reputation. For e-mail delivery information see https://postmaster.live.com (S775)

                                  • Zeptomail API error 500 internal server error

                                    Hi Everyone, getting this eror continuously! Can anyone please guide around the same! Zeptomail API error 500 internal server error Best Regards

                                  • Waiting multiple days to buy credits, causing my website to suffer

                                    So I own a fairly large website that gets a lot of registered users. I use transmail send activation emails, and also forgot password emails. I sent an email to zoho's presales team when I was only at 4K/10K emails sent, hoping to buy more credits before

                                  • Follow up

                                    Hello, I sent a message 2 days ago but I don't receive any response and I cannot find my ticket here. this is the ticket: Your ticket has been created with the ticket ID 68925465 and subject "Fwd: Fishing-alert" looking forward to seeing your response.

                                  • What's new in TransMail!

                                    Note: TransMail is now ZeptoMail. Click here to know more. Hello again, everyone! We've recently crossed the 6 months mark of TransMail's launch. In this time post our launch, we have been constantly working on updating our platform and adding new features

                                  • June 2021 in TransMail!

                                    Note: TransMail is now ZeptoMail. Click here to know more. Hello again, everyone! Hope you and your loved ones are doing well. If you're doing less than fine, we truly hope that things only get better for you.  We've had a few updates in the past month

                                  • TransMail has a new name—ZeptoMail!

                                    Tried navigating to TransMail's community forum but see a different name now? That's because TransMail has a new name. TransMail is now ZeptoMail! As we’ve grown from an internal service used mainly by other Zoho products to an up-and-coming competitor

                                  • July 2021 in ZeptoMail!

                                    Note: TransMail is now ZeptoMail. Click here to know more. Hello again, everyone! Hope you and your loved ones are doing well.  We've had a few updates in the past month in ZeptoMail—some new features and some important announcements. Take look at what

                                  • Send Email From the ZeptoMail BY API

                                    What is Zeptomail:- Transactional email service with reliable and fast delivery How we can Create a Connection for Zeptomail in Zoho CRM Go to the Setup Click on Connection Enter Connection Details:- Generate Consumer Key & Consumer Secret Using Zoho

                                  • Customer email on Opencart 3

                                    When I place an order, 2 emails are sent: 1) administrator 2) to the user The administrator receives a beautiful letter, but the user receives a damaged letter (see screenshot). What could be the problem?

                                  • [Announcement] Insert image from URL changes in Zoho Writer

                                    Hi Zoho Writer users! We'd like to let you know that we've changed the behavior of the Insert image from URL option in Zoho Writer for security reasons. Earlier behavior Once you inserted an image URL in a Writer document, the image would be fetched from

                                  • Dynamic Signature - Record owner

                                    Hi everyone, I’m using Zoho Writer merge templates from Zoho CRM and have two questions: Owner signature: How can I automatically insert the CRM record owner’s signature in the merged document? I’m not sure where this signature is stored or how to reference

                                  • Writer sing up problom

                                    Zoho writer sing up prolom face

                                  • Unable to copy into a new document

                                    Whe I create a new Writer doc and attemp to copy and past I get this message. The only way to copy into a document is I duplicate an existing document, erase the text and save it under a different name and then paste the information. Not ideal. Can you

                                  • [Webinar] Live demos and user Q&A with Zoho Writer product experts

                                    Join us on June 12, 2025 for live demos based on your use cases and real-world scenarios raised via form. This is also an opportunity to get your questions answered directly by product experts from the Zoho Writer team. Webinar agenda Live demos based

                                  • Zoho Writer's built-in citation and bibliography generator

                                    Hey researchers and writers! Do you manually format citations and bibliographies, spending hours jumping between apps and tabs? If so, then check out Zoho Writer's built-in "Citations and Bibliography" feature. Imagine you're writing a thesis on the future

                                  • Single and group checkboxes in Zoho Writer's fillable forms

                                    Hey Writer Fam, Are you making the most out of single and group checkboxes in fillable forms in Zoho Writer? Here is a handy tip to optimize your use of checkboxes, both single and group, and enhance your data collection process. Single checkboxes: Single

                                  • Collaborate efficiently with Zoho Writer's track changes feature

                                    Hi Zoho Writer Community, Zoho Writer's track changes feature is a simple, built-in solution that helps you and your team work together efficiently. Instead of juggling multiple versions of a document or building up a long email chain of comments, each

                                  • Zoho Writer's WordPress extensions

                                    Hey Zoho Writer users! Say goodbye to all your WordPress content publishing woes with Zoho Writer's WordPress extensions. Publish content with all your formatting and images, republish content when you update a document, and more—from a single window

                                  • Time-saving table hacks

                                    Hey Zoho Writer Community, Do you find yourself using a lot of tables in your documents? We're here to share some of our time-saving hacks that will help you work more efficiently, organize your data, and make your documents look neat and professional.

                                  • Automating document approval and signing with Zoho Writer and Zoho Sign

                                    Hey Zoho Writer Community! Here's another automation tip to make your processes more efficient! Question: Can I send a document for client approval first, then automatically send it for signing with Zoho Sign if they approve? Since it's the same person

                                  • Customization hacks in Zoho Writer - Part 2

                                    Hey community, We're back with some more tricks to personalize your documents, save time, and get in the zone when you work in Writer. Check out part 1 of this post if you haven't already. Let's dive right in! Document ruler units Imagine you're creating

                                  • Simplify your tax calculations with Zoho Writer

                                    Hello Zoho Writer Community! Tax season can be stressful, but with Zoho Writer, managing your income tax calculations becomes straightforward and efficient. Here’s an example of how you can use the tables and formulae of Zoho Writer to calculate income

                                  • Enhance document navigation with headings and TOC

                                    Hey Zoho Writer Community! We're back with some useful features in Zoho Writer that can simplify your document creation and navigation process. Let's dive right in! Check out our video on how to make the most of Zoho Writer's heading and table of contents

                                  • Use and download in PDF format of Zoho wirter Merge template using deluge

                                    Hello Zoho Developers. Here is some information about Zoho Writer. Writer is not just another online word processor, it's a powerful tool for editing, collaboration, and publishing. Even with its wide range of features, Writer's pared-down user interface

                                  • Customization hacks in Zoho Writer - Part 3

                                    Hello everyone, Welcome back to Part 3 of our customization tips in Zoho Writer! In this third installment, we'll be diving into some essential customization settings that can enhance your document creation experience. Sender email address in mail merge

                                  • Daytime saving timezones messing up writer pdf

                                    Hi, I need help for something I can't figure out. I created a Form to collect data and it is set up with my current Daylight Saving Time (GMT-3). This form is used to generate a contract (pdf Writer) with dates from an event that is being held in 4 months

                                  • Issue with locked content in Writer

                                    Hi, I have seen the documentation which outlines how to lock specific content within a Writer document so that it can't be modified by collaborators, but I have come across an issue. When the editor locks a paragraph for example, then a collaborator can't

                                  • Next Page