When trying to find entities related through an N:N relationship in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, you might end up in a situation where the relationship cannot be found in Advanced Find. In this article I’ll outline the reason for that as well as an easy fix.
An example
The screenshots in this article are taken from a fairly comprehensive solution we have built at Cinteros. It is a Course and Event Management solution, and in the solution we have a custom entity called “Course” and another entity called “Course Categories”. These are related with a native N:N relationship.
The below screenshot is the actual Course Date form showing the Course Categories this Course Date is related to.
It’s possible to add an existing Course Category to the Course by using the “Add Existing…” button in the Ribbon and remove a Category from a Course by using the “Remove…”. (Note that the “Remove…” button only removes the relationship between the Course and the selected Course Category, it doesn’t remove the actual Course Category instance itself).
The problem is finding the data
In the above setup, where we have the N:N-relationship for Course Categories as a sub grid on the Course form – and not in the left navigation, it is not possible by default to use Advanced Find to search for Courses with a given Course Category (or the other way around). The reason for this is that the N:N-relationship is set as “Do not display”.
So when a relationship is set to “Do not Display” it is not available in Advanced Find.
The solution
First, make the relationship visible again by customizing the N:N-relationship and setting it to “Use Plural Name”. Then Save and Publish your modified customization. However, when setting the relationship to visible it will automatically be put into the Course Forms left hand navigation pane.
Then, go into the Course form and remove the Course Category item from the Navigation pane. And remember to Publish your customizations.
The end result will look the same, but the relationship is searchable! Mission accomplished.
Now we can find the data
After the above customization it’s now possible to use Advanced Find to search for Courses that have a specific Course Category (or more than one).
You can also search for Courses that have any Course Category.
Since the Advanced Find (and the underlying Fetch engine) does not support “not-in” searches, it is not possible to found Courses that have no Course Category. Too bad, but please vote for this functionality here (link to connect).
Conclusion
When you set a N:N-relationship to “Do not display” in the relationship customization, it will not be possible to search for data in the relationship through Advanced Find. If you want it to be searchable but not visible in the navigation pane of a form, remove it through form customization instead.