Google sheets: how can I use "sort sheet" when a column uses UNIQUE?

Question

I use UNIQUE in the first column (cell A2) of my sheet to pull in unique item names from another sheet. In the other columns I have various properties for each item.

I want to be able to play around with different sort orders based on the properties, using the menu options "sort sheet A->Z" and "sort sheet Z->A" (i.e. not having to change a cell formula every time I want a different order).

But every time I do this, the sheet gets messed up, because the cell with the UNIQUE formula jumps from A2 to another position in A (leaving all cells above it empty). Is there a way to avoid this?

Answer 1

So far, this is the best advice I could find: https://alicekeeler.com/2016/07/10/google-sheets-find-unique-entries/ which suggests to use UNIQUE, copy, paste-special, then sort away.

(I'll keep this question open for a while in case anyone has better suggestions.)