Search function crippled

Iron Contributor

When you search now (for messages older than maybe a few months) in teams you will only find the exact message matching what you are searching for but there is no way of seeing the context. This is a big problem since often you might search for something like "What is the password for x?" then the search result will be useless. What's the point of saving all this data if we have no way of finding it? I think this is ridiculous and it doesn't even seem like Microsoft is working on implementing a fix for this going by their latest update here:

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/32343385-specific-search

 

But then again their Uservoice isn't exactly closely managed I rarely get any updates from it nowadays. Also here is a list of additional posts asking for pretty much the same thing (there are probably many more).

 

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38340526-make-search-return-me...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33335257-search-has-regressed
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37691500-go-to-secific-time-in...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33208651-searching-chat-histor...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/31756384-searching-go-to-chat
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/30971131-search-results-go-to-...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/31430323-channel-search-result...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37536124-return-a-whole-conver...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37958164-show-entire-conversat...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/32585155-find-search-go-to-cha...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33319165-needs-to-show-last-fe...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/16936105-search-previous-messa...
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37410679-search-conversations

 

After being delayed for years we might soon be getting private channels (after being delayed again Sept -> Nov). This makes me worried about how long we are going to have to wait until we get a resolution to this problem.

9 Replies

Search is crap, no other way of describing it. But Microsoft has heard all the complaints loud and clear and are indeed working on improvements. I was hoping we would see them in the clients by now, but guess they might be keeping some marbles for Ignite...

If they are actually working on this issue then maybe it's time for an update on the "idea" it's been more than a year of radio silence now.

It's December 2020, and the basic issue still remains. Microsoft please do something about it. 

 


the basic issue

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/19594636-search-results-should...

In "WORKING ON IT" state for close to a year with no update, like I said more than a year ago this is a big problem and should be ranked as a critical issue. Since teams is used so much now it's likely going to get noticed more and more since you only notice it with conversation over a certain age limit.

 

@ngath 

 

1,5 years later and we still have to deal with the same garbage

Yeah, this needs to be fixed! Priority for this needs to be raised as the problems are just getting larger every day that passes (message history growing).

It's having a very negative impact on my work. I have history that is several years old now and the only way to access it for me is to manually scroll back few messages a time and then waiting for more to load. If they can't show it in search for some reason at least give us a button to jump to the message in the meantime.

Got the "New Search results experience" with preview today (after a year of waiting)!

Solves nothing, still has the same issue! There is a jump to message button but it still only shows you a single message! Why even bother recreating the search function if you won't solve the main issue?

Sometimes an image speaks for more than 1000 words!

Also searching for documents is 'broken'. As you can see, the suggestion does find a document with the searched for name(and this document really does exist!), but the actual search results just says 'We couldn't find any results for..."

Florisz_0-1637828112599.png

 

@ngath  I have a colleague who has issues with the search option in Teams. If he searches for information about client X there are just a few or even none results. If I do the same, I get all the results there are about client X. I really don't understand how such thing is possible.