In Wordpress, how do I set the default admin sort order for a custom post type to a custom column?

Question

I\'ve set up a custom post type called clientarea, and set up several custom columns for it in the admin area - the custom columns are all custom meta fields, as you can see

Answer 1

Try change clientarea_default_order action & function for this:

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'clientarea_default_order', 99);

function clientarea_default_order($query) {
  if ($query->get('post_type') == 'clientarea') {
    if ($query->get('orderby') == '') {
        $query->set('orderby', 'extranet_sort_date');
        $query->set('meta_key', 'extranet_appointment_date');
    }
    if ($query->get('order') == '') {
        $query->set('order', 'DESC');
    }
  }
}