R – Custom search in Dynamics CRM 4.0

Searching and filtering via the CRM SDK does take some time to get used to. In order to simulate full text search, you need to use nested FilterExpressions as your QueryExpression.Criteria. SDK page for nested filters The hardest part is figuring out how to build the parent child relationships. There's so much boolean logic going on that it's easy to get lost.

I had a requirement to build a "search engine" for one of our custom entities. Using this method for a complex search string ("one AND two OR three") with multiple searchable attributes was ugly. If you're interested though, I can dig it up. While it's not really supported, if you can access the database directly, I would suggest using SQL's full text search capabilities.

-- ok, here you go. I don't think you'll be able to copy paste this and fulfill your needs. my customer was only doing two to three key word searches and they were happy with the results from this. You can see what a pain it is to just do this in a simple search scenario. I basically puked out code until it was 'working'.

    private FilterExpression BuildFilterV2(string[] words, string[] seachAttributes)
    {
        FilterExpression filter = new FilterExpression();
        List<FilterExpression> allchildfilters = new List<FilterExpression>();

        List<string> andbucket = new List<string>();
        List<string> orBucket = new List<string>();

        // clean up commas, quotes, etc
        words = ScrubWords(words);

        int index = 0;

        while (index < words.Length)
        {
            // if current word is 'and' then add the next wrod to the ad bucket
            if (words[index].ToLower() == "and")
            {
                andbucket.Add(words[index + 1]);
                index += 2;
            }
            else
            {
                if (andbucket.Count > 0)
                {

                    List<FilterExpression> filters = new List<FilterExpression>();
                    foreach (string s in andbucket)
                    {
                        filters.Add(BuildSingleWordFilter(s, seachAttributes));
                    }

                    // send existing and bucket to condition builder 
                    FilterExpression childFilter = new FilterExpression();
                    childFilter.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And;
                    childFilter.Filters = filters.ToArray();

                    // add to child filter list
                    allchildfilters.Add(childFilter);

                    //new 'and' bucket
                    andbucket = new List<string>();
                }
                if (index + 1 < words.Length && words[index + 1].ToLower() == "and")
                {
                    andbucket.Add(words[index]);
                    if (index + 2 <= words.Length)
                    {
                        andbucket.Add(words[index + 2]);
                    }
                    index += 3;
                }
                else
                {
                    orBucket.Add(words[index]);
                    index++;
                }
            }
        }

        if (andbucket.Count > 0)
        {
            List<FilterExpression> filters = new List<FilterExpression>();
            foreach (string s in andbucket)
            {
                filters.Add(BuildSingleWordFilter(s, seachAttributes));
            }

            // send existing and bucket to condition builder 
            FilterExpression childFilter = new FilterExpression();
            childFilter.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And;
            childFilter.Filters = filters.ToArray();

            // add to child filter list
            allchildfilters.Add(childFilter);

            //new 'and' bucket
            andbucket = new List<string>();
        }
        if (orBucket.Count > 0)
        {
            filter.Conditions = BuildConditions(orBucket.ToArray(), seachAttributes);
        }
        filter.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.Or;
        filter.Filters = allchildfilters.ToArray();

        return filter;
    }
    private FilterExpression BuildSingleWordFilter(string word, string[] seachAttributes)
    {
        List<ConditionExpression> conditions = new List<ConditionExpression>();

        foreach (string attr in seachAttributes)
        {
                ConditionExpression expr = new ConditionExpression();
                expr.AttributeName = attr;
                expr.Operator = ConditionOperator.Like;
                expr.Values = new string[] { "%" + word + "%" };

                conditions.Add(expr);
        }

        FilterExpression filter = new FilterExpression();
        filter.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.Or;
        filter.Conditions = conditions.ToArray();

        return filter;
    }

    private ConditionExpression[] BuildConditions(string[] words, string[] seachAttributes)
    {
        List<ConditionExpression> conditions = new List<ConditionExpression>();

        foreach (string s in words)
        {
            foreach (string attr in seachAttributes)
            {
                ConditionExpression expr = new ConditionExpression();
                expr.AttributeName = attr;
                expr.Operator = ConditionOperator.Like;
                expr.Values = new string[] { "%" + s + "%" };

                conditions.Add(expr);
            }
        }

        return conditions.ToArray();
    }