Sort Month Name in SQL Query

Question

My Current Query is :

SELECT FORMAT(Date, 'MMM') as 'Date', FORMAT(Date, 'yyy') as 'Year' 
,COUNT(*) 
as 'Tickets Generated'
FROM [SambaData2].[dbo].[Tickets]
GROUP BY FORMAT(Date, 'MMM'), FORMAT(Date, 'yyy')
ORDER BY Date

It returns the values:

I would like the same query to return sorted month name with Year!

Answer 1

For greater query efficiency I would avoid the format() approach.

select
       left(datename(month,[Date]),3) [Month]
     , year([Date]) [Year]
     , [Tickets Generated]
from (
        SELECT
               dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,t.[Date]),0) as [Date]
             , COUNT(*) as [Tickets Generated]
        FROM [SambaData2].[dbo].[Tickets] AS t
        GROUP BY dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,t.[Date]),0)
    ) as d
ORDER BY [Date]

The core to this approach is the following:

dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,t.[Date]),0)

this has the effect of locating the first day of the relevant year & month, thus leaving a whole date available for the order by clause, but still grouping to the required level. Runing the foillowing may help explain

select 
  datediff(month,0,getdate()) a
, dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,getdate()),0) b
, left(datename(month,getdate()),3) c
, getdate() d


   a          b        c              d           
 ------- ------------ ----- --------------------- 
  1425    2018-10-01   Oct   2018-10-04 08:08:19     

Answer 2

Here is another option:

SELECT
    FORMAT(Date, 'yyy') AS Year,
    FORMAT(Date, 'MMM') AS Date,
    COUNT(*) AS [Tickets Generated]
FROM [SambaData2].[dbo].[Tickets]
GROUP BY
    FORMAT(Date, 'yyy'),
    FORMAT(Date, 'MMM')
ORDER BY
    TRY_CONVERT(datetime, FORMAT(Date, 'yyy') + '-' + FORMAT(Date, 'MMM'));

I prefer this method over the accepted answer because it is only uses components in the ORDER BY clause which were actually present in the SELECT clause. Certain RDBMS would complain about an ORDER BY using components not present in SELECT. This answer also assumes that your version of SQL Server supports TRY_CONVERT.