Configuration

You configured four tables when you installed Universal Search, and now the sales team wants to search Contacts by phone number, or the warehouse team wants to search a custom bin table. Nothing is off limits. Two pages control everything: Index Configuration for what gets indexed and how it ranks, and Universal Search Setup for indexing and sizing overall.

Choose what is searchable

Open Index Configuration from Universal Search Setup. Each row makes one field on one table searchable.

Customer, Vendor, Item, and Contact, by No. and Name, are pre-configured so there is something to search right after install. Add a row for every other table and field you want people to find. Only text and code fields can be indexed.

Each row has:

• Table No. and Field No.: the table and field this row indexes.
• Weight, from 1 to 10: how strongly a match in this field influences ranking. A higher weight ranks a matching record higher. Use 10 for identifiers like No. and Name, and lower values for longer descriptive text, where a match is weaker evidence of relevance.
• Enable Phonetic: turns on sounds alike matching for this field (see Getting Started). It works best on short name fields, and is on by default for new rows.
• Record Filter: an optional table view or filter that limits indexing to matching records, in standard Business Central filter syntax, for example WHERE(Blocked=CONST(No)). Use it to keep blocked customers or closed items out of search entirely. Leave it blank to index every record in the table.
• Status, Indexed Record Count, Last Error: read only status for the row, whether it is up to date, queued for a rebuild, or hit an error, and how many records are currently indexed.

Apply a configuration change to records you already indexed

Live updates keep the index current automatically. As records in a configured table are created, changed, deleted, or renamed, Universal Search queues the change and a background job applies it, normally within a minute, without any action from you.

Changing a row's Weight, Enable Phonetic, or Record Filter does not retroactively touch what is already indexed. It only changes how future updates behave.

Tip: to apply a configuration change to existing data, or if a table's index ever looks stuck, select its row and choose Rebuild Selected Table, which queues a full rebuild for the background job.

Either way, Process Now on Index Configuration runs the indexer immediately in your current session, instead of waiting for the next scheduled run. Handy right after a configuration change, or before a live demo.

Control how big the index is allowed to get

Universal Search Setup, also shown above, controls indexing overall:

• Indexing Enabled: turns background indexing on or off without losing the index you already built.
• Max Results: the maximum number of results shown for a single search.
• Max Records per Table: caps how many records per table are added to the index, bounding the extra storage the index uses. Enter 0 for no limit.
• Group Cap in All View: in the mixed "All" view, caps how many results any one table can show before the rest are pushed behind that table's "view all" link (see Getting Started). Enter 0 to remove the cap.

Control who can search and who can configure

Universal Search ships two permission sets:

• Universal Search, Use, code BAA SEARCH: lets a user open the Universal Search page and read the setup and index tables. Assign this to anyone who should be able to search.
• Universal Search, Admin, code BAA SEARCH ADM: includes BAA SEARCH plus write access to setup, index configuration, and the activation wizard. Assign this to whoever administers the app.

Note: regardless of who can configure indexing, search results always respect the searching user's own table read permissions. Indexing a table does not grant anyone access they do not already have. A user only ever sees a result for a record they could open directly.