Summary

[Right out of the gate, please note that this is a very "basic" post ... nothing fancy but I wanted to share this in case someone else runs into this same question...]

An employee calls you and asks “Hey, when I search (using the full-text search feature) for something in my mail file, I can’t sort it by date … but I asked my friend in the next cube to try and she’s able to sort by date after doing a full-text text … why is that?”.

Well, just in case someone else runs into the same exact question … here’s the solution.

The Solution

Basically, IF the mail file HAS a Full-Text index (which was the case), the search results are by default, sorted by Relevance. To be able to sort the columns, the employee has to click on “More” and then must change the “Sort results by” field from “relevance” to “keep current order (sortable)”. IF the mail file DOES NOT have a Full-Text index, the results are always sortable.

The "Sort results by" field before

The "Sort results by" field after

Also, please note that this appears to be on a “per database” setting so you need to change it in each database that you are searching.

Have fun searching …

PS: I am on vacation in a place where my cell phone dosen’t work and there’s no internet … I created this blog post last week and I set it up to be published today … the “scheduling” feature in WordPress is nice for situations like these …