System Search (ALT+Q) doesn’t search through data. How can I get a list of posted data in the system related to an entity like a specific customer?

Problem:

You need to find all the data related to a specific entity. The system search only finds links on the current page, pages and tasks, reports. You need to find posted data related to a specific entity, like a customer. Isn’t there just one place to find everything? If not, what are all the search tools available to use in Business Central.

Solution:

You are in luck; we have new search capability newly introduced - Search in Company Data! This feature is available for preview in 2023 release wave 1. Business Central now lets you search across all data that's relevant for your role, and not just business transactions. The most relevant results show first.

Use the system search to find the page then bookmark it to include in your navigation menu. Depending on your profile, you may also find Search in data.. in your role center Actions.

You must enter at least 3 characters in your text to search. For example, enter “Trey” to search for data related to Trey Research. For data groups that contain many records, the data set can be expanded to show all results. Go to any of the records by clicking on the record in the result set. Results included are master data records and posted documents and ledger entries.

One limitation that I have found that surprises me – the resulting list does not include unposted documents! For example, I have a released sales order for Trey Research in my system, the search does not include this. Hm! Maybe this will be included at a future date?

Let’s look at all the different ways we can search or find in Business Central:

System Search/Tell me… (Alt+Q) to find pages, lists and reports in the system as well as links and actions on the current page.

Find (CTRL+F) to find and highlight matching values on the current page.

Search (on list pages) to find and filter to matching records based on visible columns and data. Not case sensitive.

Role Explorer (the “hamburger” icon in the navigation menu to explore available pages, reports, etc. by role.

An additional Find is available in the explorer that opens to assist in searching even further. Matching values will be highlighted by this find in a similar fashion as the browser find (CTRL+F)

With the addition of Search in Company Data, we can now find most anything we need in Business Central. Granted, we still need to know the name of what we are searching. For example, if we could just get Aged Receivables Report to be found by typing “AR aging report” into the system search. Some day!

I hope this new information speeds you along on your journey to using BC The Righter Way^TM