Views, from the last chapter, are saved lists someone builds ahead of time. But sometimes you just need to find one record, right now, without opening a saved view at all. Dynamics 365 CE gives you two tools for that: Quick Find and Advanced Find — one built for speed, the other built for precision.
- Quick Find is the search box shown at the top of a list
- It only searches columns an admin has marked "searchable" for that table
- Advanced Find is a query-builder for multi-condition, cross-table searches
- An Advanced Find result set can be saved as a view
- Views connect back to the previous chapter — Advanced Find is one way to build one
Quick Find: one box, one term
Quick Find is the search box sitting at the top of nearly every list in Dynamics 365 CE. Type a word, hit enter, and it filters the list down to matching records. It's fast, familiar, and needs no setup from the person using it.
The catch: Quick Find only looks at a predefined set of columns, called find columns, configured per table by an admin or customizer. Search for a phone number on a table where phone number isn't marked as a find column, and Quick Find won't find it — not because the data isn't there, but because that column was never wired into the search.
Advanced Find: precise, multi-condition queries
Advanced Find is the opposite tool: a query-builder for searches Quick Find can't handle. Instead of one search box, you stack up multiple conditions — Status equals Confirmed and Booking Date is next week and Court Name contains "Center Court" — combined however you like, even reaching across related tables.
Build a query once in Advanced Find, and you can save the result as a view — the exact saved-list concept from the last chapter. That's the real link between the two chapters: Advanced Find is one of the main ways a system or personal view gets created in the first place.
| Quick Find | Advanced Find | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Instant, one search box | Slower to build, built once and reused |
| Precision | Limited to preconfigured find columns | Multiple conditions, across related tables |
| Typical use | "Find that one record, fast" | "Build a precise list, then save it as a view" |
A search engine box vs. a library catalog form
Quick Find is like typing one term into a search engine's single box — fast, forgiving, good enough most of the time. Advanced Find is like using a library catalog's detailed filter form, narrowing by author, year, and genre at once until you land on exactly the right shelf.
Why "searchable" columns matter to a customizer
As a customizer, Quick Find performance and relevance are things you configure, not just things users experience. If a table's find columns don't cover what people actually search for day to day, Quick Find quietly underperforms — and the fix isn't training users harder, it's adding the right columns to that table's searchable list.