Quick Find Record Limits – Search Results May Be Limited to 10,000 instead 50,000 Records

Colin Maitland, 25 July 2013

In this blog I will briefly describe the Quick Find functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and will conclude with a brief description of the Enable Quick Find Record Limits option. 

The Quick Find functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 allows users to quickly and easily search for matching records using the Search Bar on the List View of any record type, such as the Contacts List View. The following screenshot shows an example of a completed Quick Find search by First Name. Entering a search term of jim and then clicking the search icon returns the record for Jim Glynn in the search results. 

 

For each record type in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 the fields that will be searched for matching values when using Quick Find are predefined. These columns are called Find Columns. For Contacts the standard Find Columns are:  

• Business Phone
• E-mail
• First Name
• Full Name
• Last Name
• Middle Name
• Mobile Phone
• Parent Customer

This means that when searching for records, the values in all these predefined Find Columns will checked for matches. If any of the Find Columns contain a match to the search term provided by the user then the record will be included in the Quick Find search results. 

Note: The list of which columns are included as Find Columns for use by the Quick Find functionality may be changed by a System Customiser. 

When using Quick Find the following business logic is applied: 

1. By default: Only records where any of the Find Columns start with the search term will be returned. For example: Searching for either Jim or J returns the record for Jim Glynn.

 
 

2. If the user includes wildcard characters ‘*’ in their search term then the search will be expanded. E.g.

• Searching for either *J or *J* will locate all records where any of the Find Column values contain the letter J. E.g. Benjamin, Jim and Faraj etc. 

• Note: Searching for either J or J* will both locate all records where any of the Find Column values start with J. E.g. Jim etc.

3. Only one of the Find Columns needs to be matched in order for the record to be included in the search results. For example, searching for J will return the record for Mary Palmer if her E-mail address starts with the letter J. 

4. Quick Find is not case sensitive.

 
5. Numbers, text or symbols may be used to search for records. E.g. 0-9, aA-zZ, ~!@#$%^&()_+ etc. This makes the use of Quick Find an easy method to search for records by Phone Number as in *4567* to search for all records containing the value 4567 in any of the Find Columns, or by E-mail as in *@acme.co.nz to search for all records containing the value @acme.co.nz in any of the Find Columns.

6. By default: Only Active records are included in the search results. Inactive records are excluded. If Inactive records need to be included in the search results then the Advanced Find functionality may be used. Note: Regardless of which View you have selected, such as My Contacts etc., Quick Find will search all Active records for matches.

7. If more than 50,000 records are found that match the Quick Find search term, the following message is displayed: 

 

However, a new option that is enabled by default has now been added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, since Rollup 10, called Enable Quick Find Record Limits. This option is located under Settings, System Settings, General Tab. 

 

When the Enable Quick Find Record Limits option is set to Yes the “Quick Find limit is exceeded” error message will be displayed when there are more than 10,000, rather than more than 50,000, matching records. This option improves system performance by limiting the number of records that may be returned by a Quick Find search. 

If it is required that users be able to use Quick Find to search for more than 10,000 matching records at a time then the Enable Quick Find Record Limits option may be set to No. However, this is not recommended. Alternately users may use the Advanced Find functionality search for records.