Have you ever been in a scenario where you wanted to search immediately for a “Client/Customer” during a call or even a phrase without being sure of which entity (accounts, leads, opportunity, contact …) it belongs to? Or that you wanted to search for a document you had uploaded sometime in the past, but not sure where exactly you did it? Dynamics 365 has come up with an easy way to achieve all these through one of its most fascinating features called “Relevance Search”.
As the name indicates, it returns the results after search based on “relevance” into a single list by using a dedicated search service external to Dynamics 365 powered by Microsoft Azure – which ultimately makes it deliver the most comprehensive and fast results. And the good news is that the system administrator will have the full control over the data that is searchable and to be synced in the search index which means- “you can decide what to look for and what not to!”
Before we look into how to enable this feature for your CRM instance, let’s try to answer few of the frequently asked questions.
1. How can I utilize this feature to get the results that I expect?
Just type the sentence or word that comes to your mind and that’s that! The search engine will check for each of the word in the sentence you provide and list the results accordingly. You don’t have to use wildcards or even worry about the grammar you use. The results will even consider the inflectional forms of the words you type. For example: “Work” will also be checked for working, worked, works etc. Isn’t it cool?
2. Is it available both online and on-premise?
Unfortunately “No”. Relevance search is only available for Dynamics 365 online release and not on-premise. Let’s hope Microsoft will launch it soon for the on-premise version as well!
3. Should I use this feature and Why?
Why not! You can search for almost anything in CRM using relevance search. Search across multiple entities, search for texts in option sets (drop downs) and look-ups, search for records that have been shared to you, search for texts in documents attached to records.
4. Is there any limit to the number of entities or fields that you can add for Relevance Search?
You can add any number of entities for Relevance Search, but there is a limit for the number of fields you can add to it. Currently, a maximum of 1000 fields can be enabled for relevance search.
5. How does it look?
Configure Relevance Search for your CRM
Relevance Search is disabled by default. The system administrator has to configure it for the CRM organization to make it live. Let’s see how to make this work.
- Go to Settings –> Administration
- Click on System Settings
- General Tab –> Set up Search —> Check the “Enable Relevance Search” box
Choose entities and searchable fields for Relevance Search
Dynamics 365 gives you the power to decide which type of records you want to include for relevance search and for which all fields you want to execute the search.
Follow these steps to achieve this :
- Go to Settings —> Customizations –> Customize the system
- Click on Entities —> Configure relevance search
- Now add the entities for which you want to enable the feature
- Now let’s add the desired fields for Relevance Search. In the same form —> Entities —> Click on the entity for which you want to add the fields (in the example shown below its “Account” entity) —> Click on Views —> Look for “Type” Column value as “Quick Find View” & double click the row
- New form appears. Click on “Add Find Columns” and choose the desired fields and hit OK
- Don’t forget to publish the customizations to reflect the changes
Enabling relevance search and configuring entities and fields for it is as simple as a pie, isn’t it? Feel free to try it out in your online Trial Instance today!
Happy CRMing 🙂
