Tune relevance

The starting rows give you a working baseline, and a few changes on Search Index Configuration can make the records your teams look for most appear first. This page gives four recipes and then shows how to apply any change to records that are already indexed. Each recipe follows from how Universal Search scores results; see How ranking works.

Prerequisites

• The BAA SEARCH ADM permission set, or SUPER.

Recipe 1: weight identifiers and names at 10

Weight multiplies every match in a field. Give 10 to the fields people search with on purpose, such as No. and Name, and lower values, such as 5 to 8, to descriptive text. The starting rows follow this pattern: Item No. and Customer No. at 10, the name and description fields at 8.

If your teams look up vendors or contacts by number, add those fields as new rows at weight 10. For example, add table 23 (Vendor), field 1 (No.).

Recipe 2: phonetic matching on short name fields

Turn Enable Phonetic on for short name fields, where people often spell a name the way it sounds; the field's teaching tip notes that it works best there. On number fields and long descriptive fields, consider turning it off to keep sound-alike matches out of the results. New rows start with it on, so review each row you add.

Recipe 3: filter out records nobody should find

Use Record Filter to index only the records that matter. For example, on the Item rows enter WHERE(Blocked=CONST(No)) so blocked items are not indexed. Business Central checks the filter against the table as you enter it and rejects a filter that does not fit, with "The filter is not valid for this table."

A record that stops matching the filter is removed from the index the next time it changes or its table is rebuilt.

Recipe 4: cap very large tables

Set Max Records per Table on Universal Search Setup to limit how many records of each table a rebuild indexes. Use it when a large table would otherwise add a lot of storage. See Set result limits.

Apply a change to existing records

A new Weight takes effect on the next search, because weight is applied when results are scored. A new Record Filter marks its row for a rebuild automatically. A change to Enable Phonetic changes what is stored for each record, so rebuild the table yourself:

1. On Search Index Configuration, select a row of the table you changed.
2. Choose Actions, then Rebuild Selected Table. All rows of that table go back to Pending rebuild.

3. Choose Actions, then Process Now to rebuild immediately, or let the background job do it on its next run.
4. Check that the rows return to Active, then try a search to confirm the result.

For the full text of every column's tooltip, see the field reference.

What's next

Keep the index healthy: Monitor indexing.