Search All of Your Data
Universal Search tool will allow you to search all entities in Dynamics 365 / Common Data Service for a specific value or perform a wildcard search against all or specific entities in Dynamics 365:
To Search for an exact value enter the value in the search bar and click search (e.g. Michael Ochs)
- To perform a wildcard search use an asterisk in your search term (e.g. Mi*Ochs)
- To perform a case sensitive search select the “Match Case” checkbox. NOTE: Case sensitive searches can be slower than regular searches.
- To search picklist or lookup text values (rather than the unique identifier value that is stored in the database) select the Search Picklist Text or Search Lookup Text checkboxes. NOTE: These types of searches require querying of additional metadata and data in Dynamics which can slow down your searches.
The tool can infer the types of fields to search based on the search criteria entered. For example.
- If you enter a value that can be converted to GUID (ID in Dynamics) then Lookups, Keys, Owners and Customer fields will be searched for the specific GUID in addition to search text fields for the value.
- If you enter a value that can be converted to a whole number (e.g. 1,2,3 etc.) then Numbers, State, StatusCode and OptionSets will be searched in addition to text fields for the same value.
- If you enter a value that can be converted to a decimal value (e.g. 1.23, 10.43 etc.) then float, decimal, double and currency fields will be searched.
The tool will only search fields that are valid for search through the Dynamics SDK and will only display results for fields that are readable through the SDK. A maximum of 5000 results will be shown per entity in the search results. The tool will highlight the field that contains the value specified and you can double click on a row to open the specific record in your browser that contains the search text.
Search Your Metadata
With the Metadata search capabilities in Universal Search you can go deeper into the Metadata in D365/CDS and see every instance of a reference to a specific entity, attribute or relationship anywhere in the system. Click the Metadata Search radio button to switch between record search and metadata search.

The search functionality works exactly the same in Universal Search whether your searching for records or metadata. You can use wildcard * characters to search for text within the metadata or without the wildcard to search for exact text. You can also double click a row in the results to go directly to the customization area to view the metadata. There are also options for what to search when performing a metadata search including Entity, Attributes, Relationships, Forms and Views and you can perform a case sensitive or insensitive search.
See below for revision history. Please submit feedback on Github at https://github.com/mikefactorial/MikeFactorial.XTB.Plugins.UniversalSearch
Release Notes
1.0.7 (Initial Version) – December 2018
Includes the ability to search for all native types string, integer, decimal, guid date/time values etc. as well as picklists and lookups by value. Note date/time values are based on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).
1.1.0 – July 2019
This version includes the ability to search for records based on lookup names and picklist names as well as improvements to date/time searching.
1.1.1 – July 2019
Includes a fix for entities with non-searchable primary name attributes to allow searching of those attributes.
1.1.2 – August 2019
Fix for out of sync version number in 1.1.1
1.2.4 – December 2019
Added Metadata Search functionality to search Entity, Attribute, Relationship, Form and View Metadata