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Search from Tell Me

Search every indexed Business Central table from one box: open Universal Search from Tell Me, type what you remember, and see results grouped by table.

updated: Oct 8, 2026applies-to: 1.0.0.1

This page applies to version 1.0.0.1; the current product version is 1.0.0.0.

Universal Search gives you one Business Central global search box across every table your administrator has indexed: customers, vendors, items, contacts and more. You do not need to know which table a record lives in or exactly how it is spelled. This page shows you how to open the search page and read the results.

Universal Search is a free app from Bitta Apps, installed from AppSource. It is not the Search in company data option built into Tell Me, which some Business Central partners also call universal search. The app has its own page, and it searches its own index of the tables and fields your administrator chooses.

Prerequisites

The BAA SEARCH permission set, or BAA SEARCH ADM. Ask your administrator if you cannot open Universal Search.
Indexing started by your administrator. See Start indexing.

Run a search

Press Alt+Q or select the search icon to open Tell Me, and type universal search. Choose Universal Search in the results. The page is also found with the words search, find, google, fuzzy or universal.

Tell Me search showing Universal Search as a page result — *Step 1: open Universal Search from Tell Me.*

The page opens with the cursor in the Search anything box. Start typing.

Universal Search page with the empty Search anything box ready for typing — *Step 2: the cursor is already in the search box.*

Results appear a moment after you stop typing. They are grouped by table, best match first, and each result shows the matched text and the name of the field it was found in. Above the results, the All chip is followed by one chip per table with its number of matches, for example Customer (3).

Mixed All view with results grouped by table and filter chips with counts — *Step 3: results grouped by table, with a chip per table.*

TIP

Universal Search is not added to any role center. Tell Me is the quickest way to open it from anywhere in Business Central.

What to type

Type at least two characters. Shorter searches return nothing.
Type what you remember. Part of a name, a number, words in any order, with or without spaces. Universal Search tolerates typos, fragments and sound-alike spellings. See Fuzzy search.
Results update as you type. Changing the text starts a new search and returns to the All view.

If nothing matches, the page shows No results.

Universal Search showing No results for a query that matches nothing — *When nothing matches, the page says so.*

What you see in the results

Only tables you can read. A table you do not have permission to read never appears, in the results or in the chips.
Only indexed tables and fields. If a record type you expect never shows up, it may not be indexed yet. Ask your administrator, and see Choose what to index.
A limited first page. Your administrator sets how many results appear at first, 25 by default. Show more results loads more.

What's next

See how forgiving the search is: Fuzzy search.