# Sorting

{% hint style="success" %}
This is the official documentation of Forest Admin Cloud.
{% endhint %}

### Emulation

To quickly make a field sortable, you can use sorting emulation for lexicographical order. This method works best for collections with a few thousand records or less. It's a straightforward way to get started without much setup.

***

To make the code easier to read, all the code snippets below should be wrapped in the following code. Ensure you update the collection and field names as needed.

```typescript
import type { Agent } from '@forestadmin/forest-cloud';
import { Schema } from '../typings';

export default function customizeAgent(agent: Agent<Schema>) {
  agent.customizeCollection('users', (collection) => {
    // Insert the code snippet here.
  });
}
```

***

**Enabling sorting emulation**

```typescript
collection.emulateFieldSorting('fullName');
```

{% hint style="info" %}
Using fields emulation can impact the performance of your admin panel. It is crucial to review [best practices for fields ](/cloud/best-practices/performance.md#fields)to guarantee an optimal experience for your admin panel users.
{% endhint %}

### Overriding sorting

With `replaceFieldSorting()`, you can change how records are sorted. For instance, if someone wants to sort by full name, it will sort by last name first, then by first name.

```typescript
collection.replaceFieldSorting('fullName', [
  { field: 'lastName', ascending: true },
  { field: 'firstName', ascending: true },
]);
```

Another reason for customizing the sort is to optimize performance. For instance, sorting by creationDate can be achieved by sorting the primary key in reverse order when using auto-incrementing ids. This helps avoid adding multiple indexes and improves database performance.

```typescript
collection.replaceFieldSorting('creationDate', [{ field: 'id', ascending: false }]);
```


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