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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived) / Searching customer nam...
Microsoft Dynamics AX (Archived)

Searching customer names with accents / accent insensitive search

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Posted on by ZvikaR 168

We are experiencing an issue with an AX system operating in Europe.

Many of the customer names contain accented characters: éáúí etc.

However, search in AX for customer "Beyond" does not find the customer if the customer name was entered as "Béyond"

Our research shows the SQL database is using a collating table of "Latin1_General_CI_AS", which would imply the search is "Accent sensitive" - and that is the root cause of the search not working.

Does AX supports installation using an accent insensitive collating table?

All the articles I found so far gave the _AS files only as example of possible files.

Is there another way to make the search (on client name, vendor name, worker name etc.) ignore accented characters?

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  • Suggested answer
    Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,898 Most Valuable Professional on at

    Dynamics AX system requirements say very explicitly: Microsoft Dynamics AX supports Unicode collations that are case-insensitive, accent-sensitive, kana-sensitive, and width-insensitive.

    Therefore if you decide to use an accent-sensitive collation, you will be using a configuration not supported by Microsoft. That doesn't mean that you're not allowed to do it, though.

    SQL server allow setting collations on various levels, but AX doesn't offer the same capabilities.

  • ZvikaR Profile Picture
    ZvikaR 168 on at

    Thanks for the quick answer!

    Taking that into account, how would you implement a name search that is accent insensitive?

    Surely this is a fairly common requests in countries where accents are used in text?

  • Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,898 Most Valuable Professional on at

    I don't remember ever hearing this request (and accents play import role in Czech language), anyway AX doesn't have special feature for this. My search engine didn't find much either.

    If you want it for a few columns, write a SQL command for changing collation on individual columns and run it after database synchronization. Nevertheless it may be confusing if search behaves different on different columns. And I'm not sure why Microsoft requires accent-sensitive collation - you might find it out...

  • ZvikaR Profile Picture
    ZvikaR 168 on at

    Interesting feedback.

    I am curious how it works in real life.

    So when you are set in AX in the worker table as Martin Dràb, users always remember not to search for your record using "drab" but always remember to put in the accent?

    Or are companies use a convention of entering all names without accents, to make searching easier?

  • Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,898 Most Valuable Professional on at

    "Dráb" and "Drab" are two different things, with different pronunciation. If they put me there as "Drab", it wouldn't really match my name. If they want to search for both, they'll use either "or" or a wildcard.

    Nevertheless it doesn't mean that I don't understand your requirement. It makes sense to me, but it doesn't change anything what I said before.

  • JanineAX Profile Picture
    JanineAX 60 on at

    I work in Customer Services, for customer Bèyond I would just type in *yond* to find the account.  

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