Microsoft has recently introduced a great feature which is the new cool way to search in Dataverse – Its termed as Dataverse search.

How to enable it?

Production environments: Enabled by default

Non-Production environments: Navigate to Power platform Admin centre and you can enable the setting which is highlighted below:

Tip: Scroll down and don’t forget to hit the Save button on the above screen after enabling it. It will take some time first time you enable this feature(Indexes are being created in the background) – so wait for a while for awesomeness

What tables are enabled by default?

21 in total are enabled by default, here is the list:

Without D365 Apps enabled:

Account (8)
Contact (11)
Goal (19)
Goal Metric (3)
Knowledge Article (56)

With D365 Apps enabled:

Campaign (2)
Campaign Activity (4)
Campaign Response (6)
Case (5)
Competitor (1)
Contract (7)
Invoice (4)
Lead (6)
Marketing List (5)
Opportunity (11)
Opportunity Product (8)
Order (4)
Product (5)
Quote (4)
Service (1)
Service Activity (9)

How to enable the Dataverse Search for tables/columns?

Navigate to the intended solution, Click Overview and select Manage Search index:

You can see the tables which are already enabled, and select others as per your requirement:

In our example, am adding Entitlement(notice the way 11 columns are included as a resultant) and click save:

How to use Dataverse Search?

Navigate to your Model driven App and use Search bar on the top, in my case am searching for a Contact:

The resultant of the Search:

Notice, the filters available for Modified on and Created on Date range on the right hand side of the screen.

Let me search something more generic like “Ab”:

Notice, that Owner filter is also available on the right-hand side now.

Lets Locate the Contact and understand Quick Actions available (Ability to Assign, Email a link or Share the record):

For another entity which is activity let us see what Quick Actions are available (Mark Complete, Close, Set Regarding, Assign and Email a link ):

Let us also use Natural language searches, here we are searching for “Open Phone calls”:

Let us also try Boolean operators, here am Searching for D365 Champs(Account name) + 1234567890(Phone number):

Let us do some Wild card searching, *D365*:

Isn’t this going to revolutionize the way we search – off course! Great job Product Team.

What are some important known limitations and considerations?

· Certain fields are counted as multiple fields:

· Lookup: Counted as 3 fields

· Customer: Counted as 3 fields

· Owner: Counted as 3 fields

· Option Set: Counted as 2 fields

· The Find columns in Quick find Views define the fields that are searchable in Dataverse search.

· The View columns in Quick Find View define fields that will be displayed when search is conducted on Dataverse search.

· The Find conditions in Quick Find View are applied on Dataverse search results except for the following clauses:

· Like

· NotLike

· BeginsWith

· DoesNotBeginWith

· EndWith

· DoesNotEndWith

· ChildOf

· Mask

· NotMask

· MaskSelect

· EqualUserLanguage

· Under

· NotUnder

· UnderOrEqual

· Above

· AboveOrEqual

· NotNull

· Null

· Quick Actions can be configured via a new type of rule on Homepage grid commands

· Disabling Dataverse search will remove the index within a period of 12 hours.

· You can configure upto 1000 Searchable fields, out of which 50 are required by Dataverse search system – hence limit is set to 950 fields.

Hope it helps and Power 365ing as usual!

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