My previous blog post was about how to find your data in Microsoft CRM.
One of the ways was the multi-entity search, today we are focusing on that one.

Let start with how it works, in CRM we have a pretty powerful search for a couple of years now named the Quick Find.
This Quick Find is available above the lists of data in CRM at the right.

In CRM 2015 the multi-entity search uses the quick find in the background.
End users have always the same search result searching through the multi-entity search or the quick find.

However the multi-entity search is very powerful, it has some limitations as well.
The search is limited to search for maximum 10 entities at once and also here the quick find limit is used.
But for most CRM organizations that’s more than enough.

Enough talk, let’s go!

First of all we have to fine-tune the quick find views of the entities we want in the multi-entity search.
Like always in CRM this can be done in the solution and the quick find view is found between the other views of the entity.

There are 2 parts on a quick find view. First part are the columns of the search result.
We need to add or remove columns to optimize the layout of the search results.
Basically this depends on your end users, what do they want to see in the result?
Managing this can be done by the buttons “Add View Columns” and the remove button.

Part 2 of the view are the columns to search.
You can change that by first clicking the “Add find columns” button.
The screen below has pop out, here you can select which columns has to be checked when searching.

TIP: If you have a lookup to customer (account or contact) include this in the search columns.
By default CRM does the same, if you search for an account you will find the opportunities for that account. So end users will love it to find your custom entity as well.
In CRM there is one entity not include by default that’s case, so if you use cases a lot add it to the search and change the quick find columns to search on the customer field.

Ones that is done you have – like always – to publish the solution.

But then we have to say to CRM that he has to include our entity in the multi-entity search results.
This is done in the System Settings.

In the system settings on the tab general, there is a section “Set up Quick Find”.
There you can configure to enable the quick find record limits. By default this is yes and for performance reasons this is recommended.

To configure the search click the button below (the select button).

This is the panel to select the entities which will be used in the multi-entity search.
The example below is pretty much the default, except for the custom entity I added.

If you have added all the entities, you can see the result in CRM.
Use the search box on top of the CRM screen and see the magic.

So that it for the multi-entity search, enjoy your searching.