SQL ORDER BY behaving strangely in MS Access 2010 report - sql

Question

I have done my research on this in Stack Overflow and am aware of offered solutions whereby the advice is that MSAccess reports override queries and the sort order is usually set in the report properties, or by VBA OnLoad, or something similar. I have noticed something weird in my MS Access reports however, and that is that on one report I have created with the following query the report displays everything in perfect order:
SELECT Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy") AS [Year], Count(T_Enquiry.DateOfEnquiry) AS
NumOfEnquiries, T_Enquiry.YearLevel
FROM T_Enquiry
GROUP BY Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy"), T_Enquiry.YearLevel, IIf([YearLevel] Is
Null,0,Val([YearLevel]))
ORDER BY Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy"), IIf([YearLevel] Is Null,0,Val([YearLevel]));
Here I'm particularly concerned with the ordering/sorting of the [YearLevel] field. [YearLevel] is a text lookup field because it not only contains the integers 1-12 but also has the letters 'K' and 'P' in the lookup field. When running the above query it returns the correct order - that is from 'K' then 'P', then from 1-12. I've used this query as the record source for my report and the report lists all items just as the datasheet does when running the query itself. Perfect!
Now take a look at the following query that I use as a record source for another report:
SELECT Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy") AS [Year], Count(T_Enquiry.Outcome) AS
NumOfEnrolments, T_Enquiry.YearLevel
FROM T_Enquiry
WHERE (((T_Enquiry.Outcome)="Enrolled"))
GROUP BY Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy"), T_Enquiry.YearLevel, IIf([YearLevel] Is
Null,0,Val([YearLevel]))
ORDER BY Format([DateOfEnquiry],"yyyy"), IIf([YearLevel] Is Null,0,Val([YearLevel]));
When this query is run, the datasheet is in perfect [YearLevel] order. However the report view is not. The report view puts [YearLevel] 10 first, then 12, then 2. The only difference (apart from the respective fields) between both SQL queries is the WHERE statement in the second query above. Should this make a difference in report view? I don't see how.
Can anybody please suggest a work around? Or point out what I might be missing in the report properties, VBA code, SQL queries...or maybe there might even be a macro that can sort [YearLevel] more easily in the proper order? I look forward to any advice.
Cheers.
New Information
I have done some more testing and determined that in my report design view I have a text box called Txt_TotalEnrol in the report footer which contains the following calculation:
=Sum([NumOfEnrolments])
This is in addition to some other totals. It seems it is this textbox that causes the order of [YearLevel] to be out. I deleted Txt_TotalEnrol and the ordering of [YearLevel] went back to my desired order.
Why does this operation effect the order of [YearLevel] on the report? Any suggestions very much appreciated.

Answer 1

As #parakmiakos said, check first that there is no other constraint in the OrderBy property of the report that may be overriding your bound query.
If your report is shown in a form, also check that the form doesn't have its own RowSource and OrderBy properties set to something that would explain the behaviour.
I would also not use Year as a field name since it's a reserved word and it may cause strange issues that can be hard to debug.
You could also try to wrap your query into another query (I've made small changes):
SELECT P.TheYear,
P.NumOfEnquiries,
P.YearLevel
FROM (SELECT Format([DateOfEnquiry], "yyyy") AS TheYear,
COUNT(T_Enquiry.DateOfEnquiry) AS NumOfEnquiries,
T_Enquiry.YearLevel,
Val(Nz(YearLevel)) AS YearLevelAsNumber
FROM T_Enquiry
GROUP BY Format([DateOfEnquiry], "yyyy"),
T_Enquiry.YearLevel,
IIf([YearLevel] IS NULL, 0, Val([YearLevel]))) AS P
ORDER BY P.TheYear,
YearLevelAsNumber
EDIT: I had forgotten that reports have a really un-intuitive way of settings sortting and grouping rules.
In Design mode, you need to right-click on an empty part of the report an select Sorting and Grouping:
Then a panel will appear that should let you setup your sorting rules:

Answer 2

Problem solved!
I created a simple query to list all the "Enrolled" [Outcomes]:
SELECT Outcomes
FROM T_Enquiry
WHERE T_Enquiry.Outcomes="Enrolled";
and then inserted the following into the Data Property of the Txt_TotalEnrol textbox in the report:
=DCount("Outcome","qry_TotalOutcomeEnrolled")
This had the desired effect of providing a total number and not re-ordering [YearLevel].

Answer 3

I was using ORDER BY over fields with text and the results were not as expected, so I had tried a GROUP BY but it ended up truncating my text fields at 255 characters. What ended up working for me was still using ORDER BY but for the text fields, using a LEFT statement.
So, instead of:
SELECT text1, text2, text3
FROM table1
ORDER BY text1, text2, text3
I instead put:
SELECT LEFT(text1,50000),LEFT(text2,50000),LEFT(text3,50000)
FROM table1
ORDER BY LEFT(text1,50000),LEFT(text2,50000),LEFT(text3,50000)
It's ridiculous, but it worked for this instance.