Searching by User Sortable Name

[erik_gustafson]

My institution has been using Canvas for about seven years now. We have gotten to the point where we have multiple students with the same first and last name in one course, so we had to come up with a way to differentiate the students. We decided to bring in their first initial (if it exists in our SIS) so faculty know which student is which. 

I made this change recently, it has now occurred to me that I can no longer search for students in the admin area by their first and last name. I have to search via their first name + middle initial, which I would not know. 

This led me to the sortable name field. According to the Canvas guide on How do I change the settings in my user account as an instructor? the "Sortable Name [3] defaults to your last name, first name and appears in sorted lists so admins can search for it." This can be customized in the SIS Import, so my thought was to remove the middle initial in the SIS Import. 

This leads me to my question. I cannot search for the sortable name in the admin area. Only the Full Name field is searchable in the admin area. The sortable name will appear, but it is not searchable. How can I make it so I can search by their first name and last name, but still have the middle initial in the full and display name for differentiation?

Here is an example.

Full Name: Jim J. West
Display Name: Jim J. West
Sortable Name: West, Jim