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Searching a Dataverse table with accented characters in the source data

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Posted on by SimonSays

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I have a virtual table that contains a column with accented characters in some rows. I've created a Canvas App component with a search box and Details List component (from the Creator Kit). The Details List Items property is set to:

Search(
 Virtual_Customers,
 searchBox.SearchText,
 "customer_name"
 )

I can't find a way to ignore the accents when doing the comparison. I found a post that tackles a different problem - removing accents from the search text, but I want to ignore accents in the source data instead. Anyone tackle this problem already? If I wasn't using a virtual table I'd be able to add a calculated column that could remove the accents and then do something like this:

Search(
 Virtual_Customers,
 searchBox.SearchText,
 "customer_name_without_accents"
 )

Categories:

Building Power Apps

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Shaheer Ahmad 2,194 Moderator on at

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To ignore accents in the source data when searching a Dataverse table in Power Apps, you can use the Replace and Lower functions to remove the accents from the data before comparing it with the search text. Here's an example of how you can modify your search formula:

Search( Virtual_Customers, Replace(Lower(searchBox.SearchText), "á", "a", "é", "e", "í", "i", "ó", "o", "ú", "u"), "customer_name" )

In this example, the Replace function is used to replace the accented characters with their non-accented counterparts. The Lower function is then applied to convert the search text and the customer names to lowercase for case-insensitive searching.
Make sure to include all the necessary replacements for the accented characters you expect to encounter in your data.
By using this modified search formula, the accents in the source data will be ignored during the comparison, allowing you to search for customers without considering the accented characters.
Note: If you were not using a virtual table and had the ability to add a calculated column, removing the accents from the source data using a calculated column would be a more efficient approach. However, since you're working with a virtual table, you can apply the accent removal logic directly in the search formula.
SimonSays 168 on at

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Thanks ShaheerAhmad, however you'll see I mentioned a post similar to your solution that tackles the wrong side of the comparison. I'm not trying to remove accents from the search input, but instead ignore them from the table data. Your example, simply won't work. Here's a visual example:

Data in Dataverse Virtual table
Customer
Crédit Suisse
Credit One Bank

Search: Cre
Expected results:
Crédit Suisse
Credit One Bank