Access Report: How to group on one field, but sort by another? - sorting

Question

I've read through similar questions and they don't seem to quite fit my issue or they're in a different environment.
I'm working in MS-Access 2016.
I have a customer complaints report which has fields: year, month, count([complaint #]), complaint_desc.
(complaint # is the literal ID number we assign to each complaint entered into the table)
I grouped the report by year and month and then grouped by complaint_desc and for each desc did a count of complaint number, and then did a count of complaint # to add up total complaints for the month and stuck it in the month footer which gives a result of something like this:
2020 03 <= (this is the month group header)
complaint desc | count of complaints/desc
---------------------------------------------
electrical | 2 {This section is
cosmetic | 6 {in the Complaint_desc
mechanical | 1 {group footer
---------------------------------------------
9 <= (this is month group footer)
repeating the group for each month
This is all good. What I want to do is to sort the records within the complaint desc group in descending order of count(complaint#) so that it looks like:
2020 03
complaint desc | count of complaints/category
---------------------------------------------
cosmetic | 6
electrical | 2
mechanical | 1
---------------------------------------------
9
However nothing I do seems to work, the desc group's built-in sort "a on top" overrides sorting in the query. adding a sort by complaint# is ignored also. I tried to add a sort by count(complaint#) and access told me I can't have an aggregate function in an order by (but I think it would have been overridden anyway). I also tried to group by count(complaint#) also shot down as aggregate in a group by. Tried moving complaint_desc and count(complaint#) to the complaint# group header and it screwed up the total count in the month footer and also split up the complaint desc's defeating it's original purpose...
I really didn't think this change was going to be a big deal, but a solution has evaded me for a while now. I've read similar questions and tried to follow examples but they didn't lead to my intended result.
Any Idea?

Answer 1

I figured it out! Thank you to #UnhandledException who got me thinking on the right track.
So here's what I did:
The original query the report was based on contained the following:
Design mode:
Field | Year | Month | Complaint_Desc | Complaint# |
Total | Group By | Group By | Group By | Group By |
Sort | | | | |
or in SQL:
SELECT Year, Month, [tbl Failure Mode].[Code description], [Complaint Data Table].[Complaint #]
FROM [tbl Failure Mode] RIGHT JOIN [Complaint Data Table] ON [tbl Failure Mode].[ID code] = [Complaint Data Table].[Failure Mode]
GROUP BY Year, Month, [tbl Failure Mode].[Code description], [Complaint Data Table].[Complaint #];
And then I was using the report's group and sort functions to make it show how I wanted except for the hiccup I mentioned.
I made another query based upon that query:
Design mode:
Field | Year | Month | Complaint_Desc | Complaint# |
Total | Group By | Group By | Group By | Count |
Sort | Descending | Descending | | Descending |
or in SQL:
SELECT [qry FailureMode].Year, [qry FailureMode].Month, [qry FailureMode].[Complaint_description], Count([qry FailureMode].[Complaint #]) AS [CountOfComplaint #], [qry FailureMode].Complaint
FROM [qry FailureMode]
GROUP BY [qry FailureMode].Year, [qry FailureMode].Month, [qry FailureMode].[Code description], [qry FailureMode].Complaint
ORDER BY [qry FailureMode].Year DESC , [qry FailureMode].Month DESC , Count([qry FailureMode].[Complaint #]) DESC;
Then I changed the report structure:
I eliminated the Complaint_Desc group, moved complaint_desc and CountofComplaint# (which is now not a function but it's own calculated field from my new query) to the DETAIL section of the report. Then I deleted my 2nd count(complaint#) that was in the month footer as a total for each month and replaced it with the "AccessTotalsCountOfComplaint #" which is =Sum([CountOfComplaint #]) which I had access auto-create by right-clicking on the CountofComplaint_Desc in details scrolling to "Total" and clicking on "Sum". (I deleted the extra AccessTotalsCountOfComplaint#'s that were outside of the Month Group Footer that I needed it for...)
Et Voila
I hope this helps someone else, and thank you again to Unhandled Exception who pointed me in the right direction.