Add Find Columns

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Add Find Columns

crmblog

2 May 2006 11:06 AM

Comments 4

I frequently encounter ‘Power Customizers’ who are unaware of a very basic customization feature: Add Find Columns. Each CRM entity has two special views: Quick Find and Lookup.

The Quick Find view is the view displayed after an user invokes a Quick Find Search:

The Lookup view is the view displayed in the lookup boxes.

Both of these views can be customized normally in the Forms and Views section of the Entity Customization screen. However both Lookup and Quick Find views have an extra feature: Add Find Columns.

Basically what this does is configure the search criteria for these views. By adding additional attributes to the Find Columns you essentially add the equivalent to a SQL ‘OR’ statement into your search. OK – what does that mean in English? Let’s look at an example:

Let’s say that I have First Name and Last Name listed as my Find Columns for the Contact Quick Find View. When I use the Contact Quick Find to search for a contact (let’s imagine I type in Philip) it will return a list of all Contacts with the First Name of Philip and a Last Name of Philip.

Philip Richardson

Program Manager, Customization

Application Infrastructure, Customization

Comments

justsml

13 May 2006 7:57 PM

Is there a way to search in CRM always using wildcard SQL LIKE syntax AND without having to type "*"? (e.g. Select * From {CRMTableName} Where FirstName Like '%%')

I was also wondering: why it is so *difficult* to search for keywords in any/all data in CRM v3.0?

FYI: I had to custom write a "CRM Search Engine" - it lets you type your query terms (into one text box, like Google) and automatically searches just about every entity and intelligently returns matches where all the search terms (seperated by spaces) were found ANYWHERE in the entity's various fields. It also sub-groups related entities (i.e Task, PhoneCall, etc). Furthermore, my staff can close any Activity or Case (after optionally editing a textbox prompt with a default "resolution" message) in the results by simply clicking a checkbox (I use AJAX so the user does not have to wait for the page to re-load).

I am now the hero at my company! My sales and support teams can quickly research a client (and related records) when they are on the phone with them;. Oh yea, I also auto-detect 10-digit phone number queries, when a phone # is found I query every single phone # field for any substring match of the parsed phone #'s 3 seperate parts - now Caller ID is looking a lot more powerful! ;)

Anyway, If you want to know how I did this let me know @ Dan[A T]DanLeREMOVEvy.net I'll try to help as many people as I can, including Microsoft's CRM Team - hint hint ;).

Best Regards,
Dan L.
Jim Glass Jr

30 May 2006 5:12 PM

Hmm... maybe this is something that will lend itself to a download on Sandbox. There is that contest for an Xbox in June. ;o)
Padraig

9 Jul 2008 10:50 AM

Is there any way to customise the quickfind in CRM 4.0 to seach the current view only?

I have a problem where I use filtered views but when a user uses the quickfind search, ALL contacts are returned with a match, even contacts that are not in the current filtered view.
JokiJani

15 Feb 2010 12:59 AM

My new Find Column works when I use Look Up Webpage Dialog where I can choose one Account ( eg. when picking new Parent Account for Contact)

But my new find column is not working when using Look Up Webpage Dialog where I can choose multiple Accounts ( eg. when choosing receivers in New E-mail forms To -field).

What's different between those two Look Up Webpage Dialog.