How to Set Up Dataverse Search in Microsoft Dynamics 365

The Dataverse search function is a helpful feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365.

What is Dataverse search?

Dataverse search, formerly known as ‘relevance search’, is the global search box in the top bar of Dynamics 365 that lets you type a keyword and get results. It quickly delivers comprehensive results across multiple tables and files in a single list, sorted by relevance.

With Dataverse search, users can query multiple tables, files, and documents at the same time. It finds matches to any word you search for in table columns, CRM notes, PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, HTML, XML, ZIP, EML, plain text, and JSON file formats.

It also applies artificial intelligence to interpret misspellings, common abbreviations, and synonyms to delivers quality results.

Here is an example of a search and the results:

Dataverse search can be configured to include the entities that best fit your business’s needs. It is just about as easy to set up as it is to use.

Here is how to enable Dataverse search in Microsoft Dynamics 365:

1. Navigate to the Power Platform Admin Center and select Environments:

2. Select the Environment for which you would like to enable Dataverse search for and click on Settings:

3. Next, expand the Product drop-down and select Features:

4. Toggle Dataverse search to On:

5. Scroll down the page and click Save.
6. Refresh your screen and you will see the updated search experience.

Before the update:

After the update:

To adjust which tables and columns are searchable, follow these steps to configure Dataverse search in Microsoft Dynamics 365:

1. In Power Apps (powerapps.com), navigate to the Default Solution:

2. Click on the Overview tab within the Default Solution and select Manage search index:

3. Here, we can see which tables can be searched. You can add or remove tables on this screen. Note: A maximum of 950 columns per environment exists.

4. To adjust what columns can be searched, we need to navigate to the Quick Find View for the desired table. Let’s use Mobile Phone on the Lead table as an example. From the Objects list, expand Tables and select Lead:

5. As a side note, we also can enable a table for Dataverse search within Properties under Advanced Options:

6. Then select Views under Data experiences:

7. Open the Quick Find View for Leads. Note: There can only be one Quick Find View for each table.
8. Here, we can adjust what columns are displayed in search results, how they are sorted, or if they should be filtered in any way:

9. To add a column to search, click Edit find table columns. For this example, we are adding Mobile Phone:

10. Click Apply then Save and Publish.

Results before the update:

Results after the update:

Now that you know how to set up Dataverse search, what other Microsoft Dynamics 365 challenges can we help you solve?

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