Inbox Search Not Working

Mindwatering Incorporated

Author: Tripp W Black

Created: 02/16/2010 at 01:10 PM

 

Category:
Email F.A.Qs (Non-setup), Email Setup
Other
Lotus Notes

Issue:
Search form e-mails using subject text and body text doesn't bring back results.

Related:
Type-ahead doesn't always work.
Searching attachments doesn't work.

Resolution:
Your mail file needs to be full-text indexed. Typically, administrators will turn this off so they can get more people on a server.
If you are a Mindwatering customer, we allow you to create, delete, and change your settings. The instructiosn are below.

Searching attachments:
Also, if you have an index, but your administrator unchecked to index attachments, then all attachments won't be included. To fix it, the current one needs to be deleted and a new one created with the attachments indexed "using conversion filters".

Type-ahead not working.
The in-box or view is sorted by a different column. For example: You have your mailbox sorted by date descending, but want to type ahead on the sender (Who). First click the Who column to change the sort to the name/e-mail and then type the name or e-mail desired. If the who is only an e-mail address, you cannot fix that. It's all that user sent with the e-mail.

If you are using the Notes Standard client 8.x or higher, there is a search box in the taskbar going across the top of your client. You can search all of your mail file at once by using that bar, too.
(You can also add other applications to the search box and search more than just mail, contacts, or calendar documents.)

How to Check:
1. In the Notes client, under the menu, choose File --> Database (or Application is 8.x or higher) --> Properties.
2. The 6th tab is a magnifying glass, this is the Full-text index tab. Click it.
3. There are three buttons: Update Index, Create Index, and Delete Index.
You should never need to click Update Index as the system indexes documents by default every 15 minutes if not immediately.
If you have an index, it will display "Last index time: ...". If you do not have one, it will say, "Database is not full text indexed".

How to Delete the Index:
1. In the Notes client, under the menu, choose File --> Database (or Application is 8.x or higher) --> Properties.
2. The 6th tab is a magnifying glass, this is the Full-text index tab. Click it.
3. Click the Delete Index button.
4. Close the database/application properties box.

Create an Index:
1. Do steps 1-3 above and verify you have one.
2. Click the Create Index button.
3. In the Create Full-Text Index dialog:
- Add a check to the Index attached files, set the radio button underneath to Using conversion filters on supported files (searching is often more accurate).
- Add a check to the Index encrypted fields. (This allows you to search successfully into emails that have been sent with encryption.)
- If you work for a company that creates words with periods and commas (e.g. bill number 1234.123) also indexing sentence and paragraph breaks can help. For most of us, we can skip this one.
4. Click OK. and close the database/application properties box.


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