diff --git a/packages/pipeline/src/pyearthtools/pipeline/operations/xarray/_sort.py b/packages/pipeline/src/pyearthtools/pipeline/operations/xarray/_sort.py
index 3d009531..1eb0c59a 100644
--- a/packages/pipeline/src/pyearthtools/pipeline/operations/xarray/_sort.py
+++ b/packages/pipeline/src/pyearthtools/pipeline/operations/xarray/_sort.py
@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ class AlignDataVariableDimensionsToDatasetCoords(Operation):
     """
 
     def apply_func(self, data: xr.Dataset) -> xr.Dataset:
-        dataset_ordering = list(data.coords)
+        # use coords.dim for when coordinates don't have the same name as dimensions
+        dataset_ordering = list(data.coords.dims)
 
         data = data.transpose(*dataset_ordering)
         return data
@@ -43,7 +44,7 @@ def apply_func(self, data: xr.Dataset) -> xr.Dataset:
     def undo_func(self, data: xr.Dataset) -> xr.Dataset:
         # TODO: Record all the original orderings and transpose them back, I guess
 
-        return data
+        raise NotImplementedError("Don't yet know how to undo data variable alignment.")
 
 
 class Sort(Operation):
diff --git a/packages/pipeline/tests/operations/xarray/test_sort.py b/packages/pipeline/tests/operations/xarray/test_sort.py
index e5683dba..cf5f72f9 100644
--- a/packages/pipeline/tests/operations/xarray/test_sort.py
+++ b/packages/pipeline/tests/operations/xarray/test_sort.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 import pytest
 import xarray as xr
 
-from pyearthtools.pipeline.operations.xarray import _sort as sort
+from pyearthtools.pipeline.operations.xarray import _sort as sort, AlignDataVariableDimensionsToDatasetCoords
 
 SIMPLE_DA1 = xr.DataArray(
     [
@@ -37,6 +37,55 @@
 SIMPLE_DS2 = xr.Dataset({"Humidity": SIMPLE_DA1, "Temperature": SIMPLE_DA1, "WombatsPerKm2": SIMPLE_DA1})
 
 
+def test_align():
+    """Tests that the dataset dimension alignment operation works."""
+    align_op = AlignDataVariableDimensionsToDatasetCoords()
+
+    # create dataset with arrays that are not consistently ordered
+    ds = xr.Dataset(
+        {
+            "Temperature": SIMPLE_DA1.transpose("lat", "height", "lon"),
+            "Humidity": SIMPLE_DA1,
+            "WombatsPerKm2": SIMPLE_DA1.transpose("lon", "height", "lat"),
+        }
+    )
+
+    # check that dataset dims are indeed unaligned
+    assert ds["Temperature"].dims != ds["Humidity"].dims
+    assert ds["Temperature"].dims != ds["WombatsPerKm2"].dims
+
+    # apply aligner to dataset and check that dataset dims now align
+    ds_aligned = align_op.apply_func(ds)
+    assert ds_aligned["Temperature"].dims == ds_aligned["Humidity"].dims
+    assert ds_aligned["Temperature"].dims == ds_aligned["WombatsPerKm2"].dims
+
+    ## Test that alignment works even when coordinate names don't match dims
+    da_with_named_coords = xr.DataArray(
+        SIMPLE_DA1.data,
+        coords={"h": ("height", [10, 20]), "x": ("lat", [0, 1, 2]), "y": ("lon", [5, 6, 7])},
+        dims=["height", "lat", "lon"],
+    )
+    ds = xr.Dataset(
+        {
+            "Temperature": da_with_named_coords.transpose("lat", "height", "lon"),
+            "Humidity": da_with_named_coords,
+            "WombatsPerKm2": da_with_named_coords.transpose("lon", "height", "lat"),
+        }
+    )
+    # check that dataset dims are indeed unaligned
+    assert ds["Temperature"].dims != ds["Humidity"].dims
+    assert ds["Temperature"].dims != ds["WombatsPerKm2"].dims
+
+    # apply aligner to dataset and check that dataset dims now align
+    ds_aligned = align_op.apply_func(ds)
+    assert ds_aligned["Temperature"].dims == ds_aligned["Humidity"].dims
+    assert ds_aligned["Temperature"].dims == ds_aligned["WombatsPerKm2"].dims
+
+    # placeholder test for undo method
+    with pytest.raises(NotImplementedError):
+        align_op.undo_func(ds)
+
+
 def test_Sort():
 
     s = sort.Sort()