Few months ago I was reading a fantastic post from Adi Katz about how to dynamically compose Fetch XML queries and display them on a native CRM Grid using the Advanced Functionality. The post was great and the JavaScript code provided by Adi works like a charm. After some playing I got inspired and I thought the technique could be really useful to create a multi-field search on Dynamics CRM.

Basically what I mean with multi field search is a fairly typical advanced search screen that lots of business applications include. This screen allows the user to enter values for one or more fields and search records matching that criteria. The main difference with the out of the box quick search is that the objective here is to provide several different search terms to be applied to specific fields. I think you get the idea, anyway a picture is worth more than thousand words.

So, after some playing with JavaScript, HTML and CSS I finally got a sort of add-on that you can use to easily  get this functionality on your Dynamics CRM. You can download it from SkyDrive with an example and documentation on how to adapt it.

The Add-on creates a custom search page that allows a CRM user to do a multi-field search integrated on Microsoft Dynamics CRM with the following Features:

· Can be utilised for any CRM entity, including custom entities.

· It allows search over multiple text fields, including fields of related entities.

· The conditions are expressed as AND. Thus if the user enter values on more than one field the search will be composed as an AND filter.

· No need to click on search to get the results. The user can just press enter.

· The results grid is a native Microsoft Dynamics CRM grid, which has all the out of the box functionality expected.

· The view configuration, and the search fields can be customised as explained below.

· No server side code or Visual Studio required. Just JavaScript.

If you want to give it a try, just download the zip file and have a look to the Readme for instructions on how to use it and customise the search fields.

Enjoy!

Marco Amoedo