Even with the sorting features in views, sometimes it
can be time consuming to manually look for a particular record,
especially if the view contains a large number of records. To help
address this concern, Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes a Quick Find
feature that allows you to search for records by using keywords or
wildcard characters. You can find the Quick
Find search box above the grid and to the right of the view selector.
To use it, enter a search phrase and press Enter on the keyboard or
click the button with the magnifying glass to start the search. Even
though Quick Find is simple to use, there are a few tips and tricks that
will help you find records more efficiently.
Your system administrator can configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM to search for matching records across
multiple columns. For example, you could search for particular contacts
by name, phone number, or email address. You can even include custom
data fields as part of the search criteria.
When
you enter search text, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will search for the value
as it is entered. By default, it will not search for partial
records. For example, if you search for a phone number by entering
555-1212 and the contact’s phone number is (312) 555-1212, Microsoft
Dynamics CRM will not consider that a match. It will return only those
records that have 555-1212 as the start of their phone number.
Of
course, there will be times when you don’t know the exact value you’re
searching for. In these cases, you can enter an asterisk (*) as a wildcard
character in your Quick Find search. In the previous example, if you
did not know the exact phone number, you could search for *555-1212 and
Microsoft Dynamics CRM would find the (312) 555-1212 matching record,
plus any other records that ended with 555-1212.
Tip:
You can enter the
wildcard character anywhere in your search criteria: at the beginning,
in the middle, or at the end. If you can’t find the record you’re
looking for, be sure to try different combinations with the asterisk
wildcard. Note that the Quick Find feature is not case sensitive in its
searches.
If
you start a Quick Find search when you’re working with a specific view,
such as My Active Contacts, you might expect that Microsoft Dynamics
CRM would search for matching records only within the My Active Contacts
view. However, Quick Find always searches for matching records across
all active records for that entity. Quick Find ignores inactive records.
Tip:
To filter records within a
specific view, you can click the letters that appear at the bottom of
the view (also referred to as the index
bar). Clicking a letter will update the view to show only those records
whose entry in the current sort column starts with the selected letter.
For example, if you’re looking at the My Active Contacts view with the
records sorted by City and you click B in the index bar, Microsoft
Dynamics CRM will show you only those records in which the city starts
with the letter B. If you then click the Full Name column to sort by that field and click the letter C
in the index bar, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will update the My Active
Contacts view to show only those records in which the Full Name entry
starts with the letter C.
In this exercise, you will use the Quick Find feature to search for records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Note:
SET UP
Use the Internet Explorer web browser to navigate to your Microsoft
Dynamics CRM website, if necessary, before beginning this exercise. Open
a view of Contacts that contains more than one record.
In the Quick Find box, type *ca and press Enter.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM will search for and return all active contacts with matching records.
To cancel the search, click the X button to the right of the Quick Find box, or simply select a new view in the view selector.
