Global search in CRM for Tablets executes Quickfind view across the entities specified in the System Settings.

Internally the tablet client uses ExecuteQuickFindRequest to perform this quick find search. We can perform the same request using OrganizationRequest. Let’s look at the code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Messages;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector;
using System.Net;

namespace ExecuteQuickFind
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var crmConnection = new CrmConnectionHelper(new NetworkCredential("[username]","[password]","CRM"),AuthenticationType.AD, "crm1","80","Contoso");
            if(crmConnection.IsReady)
            {
                var executeQuickFindRequest = new OrganizationRequest("ExecuteQuickFind");
                executeQuickFindRequest.Parameters = new ParameterCollection();
                var entities = new List<string> { "contact", "lead","opportunity","systemuser","competitor","activitypointer", "incident" };
                //specify search term
                executeQuickFindRequest.Parameters.Add(new KeyValuePair<string object="">("SearchText","maria"));
                //will cause serialisation exception if we don't convert to array
                executeQuickFindRequest.Parameters.Add(new KeyValuePair<string object="">("EntityNames", entities.ToArray()));
                
                var executeQuickFindResponse = crmConnection.OrganizationServiceProxy.Execute(executeQuickFindRequest);
                var result = executeQuickFindResponse.Results.FirstOrDefault();
                if (executeQuickFindResponse.Results.Any())
                {
                    var quickFindResults = result.Value as QuickFindResultCollection;

                    if (quickFindResults != null)
                    {
                        foreach (var quickFindResult in quickFindResults)
                        {
                            if (quickFindResult.ErrorCode != 0)
                            {
                                Console.WriteLine("Quickfind for {0} errored with code {1}",
                                                  quickFindResult.Data.EntityName,
                                                  quickFindResult.ErrorCode);
                                continue;
                            }
                            Console.WriteLine("***Entity {0} returned {1} record(s)***", quickFindResult.Data.EntityName,
                                              quickFindResult.Data.Entities.Count);
                            foreach (var entityRow in quickFindResult.Data.Entities)
                            {
                                foreach (
                                    var attribute in
                                        entityRow.Attributes.Where(
                                            attribute => !entityRow.FormattedValues.Any(x => x.Key == attribute.Key)))
                                {
                                    Console.WriteLine("{0} = {1}", attribute.Key, ExtractValue(attribute.Value));
                                }
                                foreach (var formattedAttributes in entityRow.FormattedValues)
                                {
                                    Console.WriteLine("Formatted: {0} = {1}", formattedAttributes.Key,
                                                      formattedAttributes.Value);
                                }
                                Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------------");
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }               
            }
        }

        private static object ExtractValue(object attributeValue)
        {
            var attributeType = attributeValue.GetType().Name;
            object returnValue = attributeValue;
            switch (attributeType)
            {
                case "OptionSetValue":
                    returnValue = ((OptionSetValue) attributeValue).Value;
                    break;
                case "EntityReference":
                    returnValue = ((EntityReference)attributeValue).Name;
                    break;
                case "Money":
                    returnValue = ((Money)attributeValue).Value;
                    break;
            }
            return returnValue;
        }
    }
}