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Searching in Dataverse

Authors
  • avatar
    Name
    Tom Senior
    Twitter
    mailtom@tomsenior.netlinkedintom-senior

Overview

Searching for rows and records is an important part of any database system, sometimes we want to quickly find 1 record, other times we might want a more advanced query. In Dataverse there are 3 ways to search -

  • Quick Find
  • Advanced Find
  • Dataverse Search

Below i'm going to go deeper into each option and look at the pros and cons for them.

Quick Find

Quick find is the simplest way to search Dataverse tables and is enabled by default. It is available in model driven applications at the top right of the screen. To use quick find you might need to add wildcards to the start or end of your search term like below.

quick find search

Catogorised search lets you search mutiple tables (up to 10) with Quick find. If you want to do this, the tables need specifying in the environment you are searching from.

Once you've selected the tables, to use catagorised search just click the search icon at the top left of the power app.

catogorised search

Advanced Find

Advanced find is a way to run more advanced query's on your data than quick find. It is enabled by default and to use Advanced find you can just click the Filter icon at the top right of your model driven power app.

Advanced find can only search one table at a time, so when you click it you'll get the option to select the table you are searching. Then the query builder will open. The query builder lets you select one or more query's to build your results. In the below example, we're looking in the fundraisers table for active items where the goal is greater than 100.

Advanced find query builder

The results from this query can then be exported to Excel, passed to a Power Automate flow, emailed or visualised with Power BI.

It worth noting, wildcards are not supported in Advanced find as they're not required.

Dataverse Search

Dataverse Search is the preferred method of search in Dataverse. With it we can search an unlimited number of tables quickly all at once. Dataverse Search returns a list of search results in order of relevance and behind the scenes is powered by Azure Cognitive Search.

One of the things that makes Dataverse search so powerful is the fact uses AI to interpret inflections, misspelled words, abbreviations and synonyms. It can also search inside data and attachments and show search suggestions on the fly as you type.

So that tables and columns are searchable in Dataverse search they need to be indexed. A maximum of 1000 of fields can be indexed per organization, and 50 of those are used by the Dateverse search function itself, leaving 950 fields available for you own tables. The number of fields indexed per table depends on that tables Quick find view.

It is enabled by default in production environments but does need enabling in developer and staging environments. To do this head to the Power Platform Admin Center. Select your environment, select Settings then under Product select Features. Under the Search section, turn Dataverse Search on and hit Save.

Dataverse search on

When dataverse search is enabled, you'll see the search box in the center of the nav bar at the top.

Dataverse search on

Managing Dataverse Search Index

To add tables to the Dataverse Search index, open the solution overview page and select Manage search index. In the right pane you can then select the tables you want to index and at the bottom you'll get an overview of the space used.

dataverse manage search index

If you want to use Dataverse for free while learning, you can view this guide on setting up a Power Platform developer environment.

Thanks for reading. Any questions or feedback - Twitter, LinkedIn or Email