Symptoms
Populate rule Sort setting is not working for a drop list based on a SmartObject. Sort setting has no affect on the displayed data. It will not sort the displayed items in ascending or descending order.
Diagnoses
Determined to be a bug that impacts on sorting, paging and filtering in CSOM.
Resolution
Bug fix incorporated into Appit 1.3. After Customer's environment was upgraded to 1.3 the issue is confirmed to be resolved.