Sorting QSL Cards

Sort QSL Cards as required by the QSL-Bureau

Some QSL bureaus require that the QSL-Cards are sorted in a special manner. SWISSLOG contains functions which allow You the sort the QSL Cards as required.

The key components for the QSL- Card Sort feature are:

• The Sort Rules
• The sort-key table QSLCardSort

Prerequisite for the sort feature is, that the Callbook entries do contain the Home-DXCC, that's the DXCC of the country to which the QSL Card must be sent and that a callbook entry exists for the QSL-Managers.

QSL - Sort Rules:

With the Sort-Rules you define how the QSL-cards must be sorted for the country of the DXCC. 

If no rule is defined for a DXCC, the QSL Cards are sorted alphabetically by Call within the DXCC.

On the left side You see the rules which are defined.

• The Column Rule contains the type of rule. Currently only QSL is supported
• The Column DXCC is the DXCC for which the rule applies. I

There are two kind of rules:

1. QSL Sort Rule defines how normal QSL Cards should be sorted
2. QSL Manager Sort Rule defines how Cards with QSL-Managers should be sorted

Note, that the primary sort criteria is always the Home-DXCC. This is:

• For normal QSOs  the DXCC defined in the callbook entry of the station
• For QSOs containing a QSL - Manager the DXCC defined in the callbook entry of the manager

QSL Sort Rule:

Currently there are 3 rules:

• Fully Alphabetically : Sort the cards in alphabetical order within the DXCC. 
• By Call-Area : Sort on the numerical part of the call sign which defines the call area. For example:
  
  • by 4 in the calls W4AA  and WA4AA
  • by 51 in 4K51GF
    
• By number of characters in Call : Sort by the length of the call (this is as required in HB9 ! ). Example:

  • HB9A
  • HB9B
  • HB9AA
  • HB9BB
  • HB9AAA
  • HB9BBB

QSL Manager Sort Rule:

Currently there are also 3 rules:

• At the beginning of the country stack: All cards with QSL Manager are put together at the beginning of the Cards for a country
• Alphabetically within the country stack : QSL -Manager cards are mixed with normal cards. 
• At the end of the country stack: All cards with QSL Manager are put together at the end of the Cards for a country

How to use the QSL Sort Rules

The key - component for sorting QSL Cards is a new table called 

QSLCardSort

This table (actually its a view) contains two fields:

L_QSONr 

and 

QSLSortKey

The trick is now to join this table on L_QSONr and to sort (order by) the QSLSortKey

The following example explains how this is done:

Reports based on QSO Table

Steps

1. Add the QSLCardSort Table 

• Press on the Button to open the  Add Table Dialog
• Select QSLCardSort
• Close the  Add Table Dialog

2.  Join QSLCardSort to QSO it via the L_QSONr Fields 

• in QSO select L_QSONR, press the left mouse button and hold it pressed
• move the mouse over the L_QSONr field in QSLCardSORT and release the mouse button (drag & drop)

3. Add the QSLSortKey to the selected fields

• in QSLCardSORT select QSLCardSORT , press the left mouse button and hold it pressed
• move the mouse over the first field in the field table (just beside the Header)  and release the mouse button (drag & drop)
• QSLSortkey should now be the first field in the table
• double click on the QSLSortKey field to open the Value Editor
• in the Value Editor set Show to Show and Sort to Ascending
• Remove redundant sort criteria's. For example there is no need to sort on Call and DXCC anymore. To remove the sort on call for example
  • Select the call field
  • Open the value editor (if not already open)
  • set Sort to Unsorted

This should look now similar to the following picture

4. Change the Group Header settings if there are any

• Select the Layout page
• Open the Page Designer by pressing the button
• select the Arrange page
• if there is a Group Header on the Field call then change it to the field QSLSortKey
  • press the arrow on the Group Header CALL
  • in the Edit Section dialog select QSLSORTKEY in Group: Value and press OK

The next picture illustrates these steps

5. Test and save the Report.

Reports based on QSLCard Table

I have already joined the QSLCardSort table to QSLCard. Therefore QSLCard already contains the QSLSortKey. This means, that the steps 1 and 2 of the description above are not needed. So perform the Steps 3 to 5 for Reports based on the table QSLCard.

Here is how it should look like

 

Reports based on QSO Table

For reports based on the Logbook table the procedure is the same as for reports based on the QSO table. The only difference is, that You have to join the logbook table.

Hers is how it looks like :