Configure Dataverse search for your environment

Dataverse search delivers fast and comprehensive search results across multiple tables in a single list, sorted by relevance. It gives you an easy and well-informed search experience in model-driven apps. As an administrator with environment-level permissions, you can go to the Power Platform admin center to configure Dataverse search for all the model-driven apps within a specific environment. Use Quick Find views to manage global, quick find, and lookup search behavior.

Benefits of Dataverse search

• Integration with AI/Copilot experiences: Users can have a "conversation" with their data and identify themes, patterns, and insights by using natural language. Apply AI technology to interpret natural language such as misspellings, common abbreviations, and synonyms to deliver quality results.

• Unified search: Dataverse search lets you quickly find content in model-driven apps and other products that use Dataverse through a single, unified search experience. It provides a better user experience compared to quick find search, where all words in the search term must be found in one column.

• Efficient relevance-based results: Intelligent, ranking algorithms return the most relevant records first, with a performance that's superior to categorized search. This feature reduces the time you spend searching and increases accuracy.

• Smart fuzzy search: Handles variations in spelling and terminology so that it doesn't depend on exact keyword matches.

• Security and compliance: Respects Dataverse security roles and permissions. Users can only see search results for records that they have access to.

• Scalability and performance: Optimized for large datasets and supports multiple data types, such as choice and lookups.

• Search across documents in Dataverse: Includes search results for text in documents that are stored in Dataverse such as PDF, Office documents, HTML, XML, ZIP, EML, plain text, and JSON file formats. It also searches text in notes and attachments.

Availability and language support

• Dataverse search is available in customer engagement apps such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation.

• Dataverse search isn't available for customer engagement, on-premises organizations. Quick Find is the only search option for on-premises, customer engagement apps organizations.

• Full-text Quick Find is available for customer engagement, on-premises organizations starting with Dynamics CRM 2015 Update Rollup 1.

• For a more detailed comparison of the searches available in Microsoft Dataverse, go to Compare search options in Microsoft Dataverse.

• All searchable fields in Dataverse search are processed in the language that most closely matches the organization's base language, except Kazakh where all fields are processed by using a basic, language-agnostic text processor.

Managing Dataverse search

Dataverse search is an opt-out feature. It's set to On for all new production environments and Default for all other environment types. Use Dataverse search so users have a search experience in model-driven apps and harness the power of Copilot experiences.

You can find this setting in the Power Platform admin center. For more information, see Search.

In the Power Platform admin center, admins can use the Dataverse Search setting to manage it. The state selected for Dataverse search impacts the ability to use Dataverse data across the enabled experiences for all the organization.

The following tables show how each Dataverse search setting impacts global search experiences including SearchQuery API and generative AI experiences, and how admins can use this setting to manage it.

What the Dataverse search setting means for global search

When you set Dataverse search to On, a search box appears at the top of every page in model-driven apps in the environment. The search box lets you start a new search and quickly find the information you're looking for from the searchable tables included in the app. When you turn on Dataverse search, it becomes the default and only global search experience in all model-driven apps in the environment.

Dataverse search can be extended to other Microsoft search canvases, including SharePoint Online, Bing, and Office. By enabling a connector, you can search for and find information from the selected canvas as if you're searching in the app. For example, you can quickly look up a contact's phone number or email address without opening the app. For more information, see Search for records by using Dataverse search.

What Dataverse search means for generative AI-enabled experiences

Some generative AI experiences use Dataverse search data. When you enable Dataverse search, you can access Copilot chat through the Copilot icon in the right navigation bar in a model-driven app. You can open or minimize the Copilot chat pane as you want.

• Power Apps: Copilot chat for model-driven apps in Power Apps is a next-generation AI assistant that helps app users get insights about the data in their apps through conversation in natural language.
• Copilot Studio: Integrating Dataverse tables as your knowledge source allows you to ground your agent in the data contained in your tables. This can also happen using unstructured data as knowledge or Dataverse tools.

Individual users can't switch to quick find search, formerly known as categorized search. You must include tables in the application you're using with Dataverse search. Be sure that your application includes any table you want users to search.

Take these steps to turn on Dataverse search:

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center as a system administrator.
2. In the navigation pane, select Manage.
3. In the Manage pane, select Environments.
4. On the Environments page, select an environment.
5. In the command bar, select Settings .
6. Expand Product, then select Features.
7. Under Dataverse search, select On.
8. Select Save to apply the change.

When you turn on Dataverse search, you allow global search in all model-driven apps in that environment and allow generative AI experiences to work.

When you provision a Dataverse search index, you see an indication that provisioning is in progress.

Set up Dataverse search for global search

After you turn on Dataverse search in the Power Platform admin center, set up Dataverse search by completing four steps:

1. Select the searchable tables for Dataverse search.

2. Review the columns that are searched, the columns that are displayed, and the filter conditions that apply in model-driven Power Apps as detailed in the Select searchable fields and filters for each table section.

3. Include the tables allowed for Dataverse search in the model-driven app. Use the app designer to verify table inclusion in an app's components. For more information, see Add or edit model-driven app components.

4. Make sure your table is customizable and that the settings to Track changes and Appear in search results in the Advanced options area are both set to On. For more information, see Create and edit tables using Power Apps.

Select tables for Dataverse search's global search

To set up search, review the tables that are allowed for Dataverse search in the context of a solution. By using the new solution explorer, you can see a snapshot of the Dataverse search index on the Overview page.

1. Sign in to Power Apps.
2. In the navigation pane, select Solutions.
3. Choose the solution you want to modify, and then select Edit in the command bar.
4. On the Objects page, in the navigation pane, select Overview.
5. In the Dataverse search pane, select Manage search index.

Although there's no limit on how many tables you can index for Dataverse search, there's a limit on the total number of fields that you can enable for Dataverse search. Dataverse search indexes 50 fields by default. Since the maximum is 1,000 searchable fields for an organization, you can configure up to 950 searchable fields.

When you select a table to index for Dataverse search, you can see the number of fields that are added to the index.

The number of fields indexed for a table depends on the table's Quick Find view. Additionally, some field types are treated as multiple fields in the Dataverse search index, as indicated in this table.

The progress bar at the bottom shows the percentage of indexed fields as a fraction of the maximum allowed number of searchable fields.

A warning message appears when you reach the indexed field limit. To add more fields to the index, you need to free up space by removing some of the fields that are already in the index or by removing entire tables from Dataverse search scope.

By default, the following system tables are indexed for Dataverse search. However, you must add custom tables to Dataverse search for them to be searchable. In the table, the numbers in parenthesis indicate the total number of columns included in the index for that table.

Select searchable fields and filters for each table for global search

The table's Quick Find view drives the searchable table fields and filters used for Dataverse search. When you enable Dataverse search, the complete set of Find columns, View columns, and Filter columns in a table's Quick Find view become part of the Dataverse search index. You can add unlimited searchable fields for each table. However, as previously noted, the total number of indexed fields has a limit.

• The Find columns on a Quick Find view define the searchable fields in the Dataverse search index. Text fields such as Single Line of Text and Multiple Lines of Text, Lookups, and Option Sets are searchable. Find columns of all other data types are ignored.

  Note

  Add currency fields to the Find Columns so the currency symbol that's visible on the record is returned in the search results. If you don't add the currency field to the search index, users see the currency symbol localized according to their language settings. To use a lookup field, turn on the reference table to be searchable.

• The View columns on a Quick Find view define the fields that display in model-driven apps' search results page when the matched results are returned.

• The Filter conditions on a Quick Find view apply to the Dataverse search results. The following table provides a list of filter clauses not supported by Dataverse search.

  Operator
  Like
  NotLike
  BeginsWith
  DoesNotBeginWith
  EndWith
  DoesNotEndWith
  ChildOf
  Mask
  NotMask
  MaskSelect
  EqualUserLanguage
  Under
  NotUnder
  UnderOrEqual
  Above
  AboveOrEqual
  NotNull
  Null

To edit the searchable fields of a table:

1. Sign in to Power Apps.
2. In the navigation pane, select Tables.
3. On the Tables page, select the table you want to edit.
4. In the Data experiences pane, select Views.
5. From the list of views, select the Quick Find View type. For example, select Quick Find Active Accounts.
6. Edit View columns and Find columns by adding, removing, or reordering the columns. For a more detailed description of how to add or remove columns in a view, go to Choose and configure columns in model-driven app views in Power Apps.
7. Select Save and Publish to publish the changes to the view.

Configure quick actions that appear with Dataverse search in model-driven apps

The Dataverse search experience brings some of the most frequently used actions closer to search results. It helps users complete their tasks without having to navigate to the record page in model-driven apps. Quick actions are a small set of commands specific to a table. Users can see quick actions when they're interacting with search in model-driven apps running on a web browser. Some of the commonly used tables are configured to show a set of commands to help users complete their tasks without losing context.

Quick actions are a subset of the table's homepage grid commands. For example, when you select an account in its homepage grid, the Account table's quick actions come from the set of commands at the top of the page. You can use the ribbon's EnableRule to hide or show quick actions for a table. To learn more about defining ribbon-enable rules in Power Apps, see Define ribbon enable rules.

These three new enable rules give you the flexibility to optimize quick actions:

• ShowOnQuickAction rule is a rule to make a command appear only as a quick action.

  <CommandDefinition Id="new.contact.Command.Call">
    <EnableRules>
      <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.SelectionCountExactlyOne" />
      <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.ShowOnQuickAction" />
    </EnableRules>
    <DisplayRules />
    <Actions>
      <JavaScriptFunction FunctionName="simplealert" />
    </Actions>
  </CommandDefinition>
  

• ShowOnGridAndQuickAction rule is a rule to make a command appear on the homepage grid and as a quick action.

• ShowOnGrid rule is a rule to make a command appear only on the homepage grid. You can use this command to hide an existing quick action.

  Note

  Each table can have up to six quick actions.

  Quick actions currently show up only in the context of search—alongside suggestions and in the results page on the primary column. The same set of quick actions appears alongside suggestions and in the results page.

Set managed properties for Dataverse search

If you include a table for Dataverse search, set the Can enable sync to external search index managed property to True for the table. By default, the property is set to True for some of the out-of-the-box tables and all custom tables. Some of the system tables can't be enabled for Dataverse search.

To set the managed property, take these steps:

1. Go to Advanced Settings > Customizations.

2. Select Customize the System.

3. Under Components, expand Entities, and then select the table you want.

4. On the menu bar, select Managed Properties. For Can enable sync to external search index, select True or False to set the property to the desired state. Select Set to exit.

5. Select Publish for your changes to take effect.

If you want to change the Can enable sync to external search index property to False, first deselect the table from Dataverse search. This message appears if the table is included in the Dataverse search:

This entity is currently syncing to an external search index. You must remove the entity from the external search index before you can set the Can enable sync to external search index property to False.

If Can enable sync to external search index is set to False and you try to include a table in Dataverse search, this message appears:

Entity can't be enabled for Dataverse search because of the configuration of its managed properties. For custom tables with sensitive data, consider setting the Can enable sync to external search index property to False.

Dataverse search reporting FAQs

This section provides answers to frequently asked questions about Dataverse search reporting.

How can I find out how much storage Dataverse search consumes?

The DataverseSearch table (previously known as RelevanceSearch) reports on the storage consumed by Dataverse search at the environment level. Dataverse search is part of database storage consumption in the Summary and Dataverse tabs. You can also view Dataverse search in the Environment report in Power Platform admin center or Capacity report.

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
2. In the navigation pane, select Licensing.
3. In the Licensing pane, select Capacity add-ons.
4. On the Capacity page, go to the Dataverse tab, select an environment, and then select the Chart icon for details.
5. In the Licensing pane, select Dataverse.
6. On the Licenses page, go to the Environments tab, and then select an environment to view.

We recommend turning on Dataverse search so users can enjoy a better search experience in model-driven apps with optimized, generative AI experiences. As an environment admin, you can opt out of this feature by turning if off. If Dataverse search is turned Off, generative AI experiences are limited for makers and end users.

For all FAQ about Dataverse search, go to Frequently asked questions about Dataverse search.

Related content

• Search for tables and rows by using Dataverse search
• Configure facets and filters
• Frequently asked questions about Dataverse search
• Dynamics 365 results in Microsoft Search