Salesforce Features
Customizable Search Results
A Faster Path to the Information You Need
- Find the information you’re seeking more quickly
- Narrow searches for more targeted, relevant results
- Customize your search experience
Spring ’07 introduces exciting enhancements to make searching data and interacting with the results of your searches simple, smooth, and highly effective. Inline paging and sorting features simplify the task of working with large sets of search results. Powerful filtering and scoping functions narrow searches and results. Customization options enable users to design search results layouts that are tailored for the way they work.
This feature is available in all Editions.
Training, Documentation, & Best Practices
- Release Notes (PDF)
- Search User Guide (Flash)
Feature Details
- Inline Results Paging and Sorting: Inline paging is enabled for search results that contain more than 25 records. Use the “Next Page” and “Previous Page” links to page through the result sets for each object type inline, without affecting the results for other objects. Sort result sets of any size by clicking column headers to display the desired records. Cancel long sorting operations with the click of a button.
- Custom Search Layouts: Choose how to view search results by adding, removing, and reordering the columns in a view. Administrators can customize search column layouts for themselves or for their entire organizations. Note: This feature is enabled for all users with the Spring ’07 release, so the “Customize Columns” link will be immediately available to all users in your organization. Administrators may want to advise users of this change (see additional note below).
- Search Results Filters: Filter search results by field to narrow down the results. Use the “Show Filters” toggle in the search results headers to access filters and define filter values. Administrators can determine which objects and fields are available for filtering. Note: If you enable this feature, the “Show Filters” link will be available to all users in your organization. Administrators may want to advise users of this change (see additional note below).
- Enhanced Solution Search Results: View short excerpts from the solutions listed in the solution search results, as well as the category to which the solution belongs, easing the decision of which search result to choose.
- Sidebar Search Enhancements: Administrators can add a drop-down list of available objects to the sidebar search to allow users to limit their searches to specific objects. Note: If you enable this feature, a drop-down list will be added above the sidebar search box for all users in your organization. You may want to advise users of this change (see additional note below).
Note: As detailed above, Spring ’07 includes search features that will immediately impact end users when the release occurs. Because search is a heavily used Salesforce function, we suggest that administrators prepare end users for these changes.
13 Comments
February 26
With this release, will we be able to customize our search results. Our organization uses custom fields which are critical to be able to search by. Can we expect this with the spring release?? If not, is there a way to add certain fields to the search feature on the back end?
February 26
We end up with duplicate contacts when someone searchs on a name and it was originally misspelled and the search comes empty. Is there any way for search to view items that are close in spelling, particularly proper names?
February 26
That's a great idea Jon, you should post it to the IdeaExchange
February 28
In response to this question: "With this release, will we be able to customize our search results.": Any custom field that is searchable* maybe added to the custom search layouts for display in search results, except formula fields.
*All custom auto number fields and custom fields that are set as an external ID are searchable from the Sidebar Search. In addition, all custom fields of type text, text area, long text area, email, and phone are searchable from Advanced Search.
March 5
There's a post on IdeaExchange about whether or not default sort-order for number and date columns would be better if set to descending (currently defaults to ascending on first click). Check it out and vote if you'd like to see it changed: http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/62956/Default_descending_sortorder_for_dates__numbers_
March 12
The In line View of Search Results can be customized which will help you in viewing the data on the fly
March 21
my search box disappeared today. can't search for items. did i click on something incorrectly?
thanks
April 20
I am having a problem whereby I type an account name into the general search bar. The resulting list of contacts that is returned is not complete. I might see, say 2 contacts. However, when I go to the account, there are 4. Has anyone experienced this, and do you know what the solution is?
Thanks,
Scott
April 20
I am having a problem whereby I type an account name into the general search bar. The resulting list of contacts that is returned is not complete. I might see, say 2 contacts. However, when I go to the account, there are 4. Has anyone experienced this, and do you know what the solution is?
Thanks,
Scott
April 24
I am looking for a way to create a mass event/remider for a specific type/group or accounts.
Any advice will be welcomed
May 4
These search enhancements fall flat in a way because the actual search logic is still embarrassingly substandard.
No quoted strings, no logical operators... SF still combines every search term with an OR, and largely attempts to use match ranking to make up for this weak approach.
We are considering buying a Google search appliance to give SF a little boost into the present day.
May 6
"my search box disappeared today. can't search for items. did i click on something incorrectly?"
The search box is in the lefthand sidebar, which is collapsable. Look for a small triangle near the top of the left side of the screen and click on it to expand the sidebar.
May 6
"I am having a problem whereby I type an account name into the general search bar. The resulting list of contacts that is returned is not complete. I might see, say 2 contacts. However, when I go to the account, there are 4. Has anyone experienced this, and do you know what the solution is?"
Contacts are not searchable by account name. Contact matches are generated by matches in the email address domain. There's a solution regarding this: "Why can I not search contacts for an Account name?" (https://na1.salesforce.com/_ui/training/help/pub/UserEdSolution?id=501300000006QRA&retURL=https%3A%2F%2Fna1.salesforce.com%2F_ui%2Ftraining%2Fhelp%2FCombinedSearchPage%3Fstr%3Dsearch%2Bcontacts%2Baccounts&ps=1&orgId=00D000000000062)