SQL Server ORDER BY date and nulls last

by

smalldatetime has range up to June 6, 2079 so you can use

ORDER BY ISNULL(Next_Contact_Date, '2079-06-05T23:59:00')

If no legitimate records will have that date.

If this is not an assumption you fancy relying on a more robust option is sorting on two columns. 

ORDER BY CASE WHEN Next_Contact_Date IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END, Next_Contact_Date

Both of the above suggestions are not able to use an index to avoid a sort however and give similar looking plans.

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One other possibility if such an index exists is

SELECT 1 AS Grp, Next_Contact_Date 
FROM T 
WHERE Next_Contact_Date IS NOT NULL
UNION ALL
SELECT 2 AS Grp, Next_Contact_Date 
FROM T 
WHERE Next_Contact_Date IS NULL
ORDER BY Grp, Next_Contact_Date

Plan

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