New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2: Specify And Use Full-Text Search Indexes On Table Fields

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 Wave 2.

The 13th of the new functionality in the Development section is specify and use full-text search indexes on table fields.

With the new full-text search metadata on table fields, AL developers can significantly enhance data search features, making them easier and faster for users. This feature improves user satisfaction and productivity by providing more precise and relevant search results.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: –
General Availability: Oct 2024

Feature Details

p>As an AL developer, you can now specify which table fields are included in full-text search indexes on the database. By doing this, the following search features will be faster and provide better search capabilities:

• Companywide search (data search)
• List page search
• Lookup search

To specify full-text search, you set the OptimizeForTextSearch property on fields in tables or table extensions.

In AL code, you can also use a new && filter syntax in the SetFilter() method. For example:

FieldRef.SetFilter('&&' + SearchString + '*')

The new syntax supports a subset of SQL Server’s CONTAINS operator.

You can also use new OptimizedForTextSearch property on the Field virtual table and IsOptimizedForTextSearch on variables of the FieldRef data type.