Improved Name Search

Beta License: AGPL-3 OCA/server-tools Translate me on Weblate Try me on Runboat

Extends the name search feature to use additional, more relaxed matching methods, and to allow searching into configurable additional record fields.

The name search is the lookup feature to select a related record. For example, selecting a Customer on a new Sales order.

For example, typing “john brown” doesn’t match “John M. Brown”. The relaxed search also looks up for records containing all the words, so “John M. Brown” would be a match. It also tolerates words in a different order, so searching for “brown john” also works.

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Additionally, an Administrator can configure other fields to also lookup into. For example, Customers could be additionally searched by City or Phone number.

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How it works:

Regular name search is performed, and the additional search logic is only triggered if not enough results are found. This way, no overhead is added on searches that would normally yield results.

But if not enough results are found, then additional search methods are tried. The specific methods used are:

  • Try regular search on each of the additional fields
  • Try ordered word search on each of the search fields
  • Try unordered word search on each of the search fields

All results found are presented in that order, hopefully presenting them in order of relevance.

Table of contents

  • Configuration
  • Usage
  • Known issues / Roadmap
  • Bug Tracker
  • Credits
    • Authors
    • Contributors
    • Other credits
    • Maintainers

Configuration

The fuzzy search is automatically enabled on all Models. Note that this only affects typing in related fields. The regular search(), used in the top right search box, is not affected.

Additional search fields can be configured at Settings > Technical > Database > Models, using the “Name Search Fields” field.

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Usage

Just type into any related field, such as Customer on a Sale Order.

Known issues / Roadmap

  • Also use fuzzy search, such as the Levenshtein distance: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/fuzzystrmatch.html
  • The list of additional fields to search could benefit from caching, for efficiency.
  • This feature could also be implemented for regular search on the name field.
  • While adding m2o or other related field that also have an improved name search, that improved name search is not used (while if name_search is customizend on a module and you add a field of that model on another model it works ok). Esto por ejemplo es en productos si agregamos campo “categoría pública” y a categoría pública le ponemos “parent_id”. Entonces vamos a ver que si buscamos por una categoría padre no busca nada, en vez si hacemos esa lógica en name_search de modulo si funciona

Bug Tracker

Bugs are tracked on GitHub Issues. In case of trouble, please check there if your issue has already been reported. If you spotted it first, help us to smash it by providing a detailed and welcomed feedback.

Do not contact contributors directly about support or help with technical issues.

Credits

Authors

  • Daniel Reis
  • ADHOC SA

Contributors

  • Daniel Reis <https://github.com/dreispt>
  • Kitti U. <kittiu@ecosoft.co.th> (migrate to v14)
  • Radovan Skolnik <radovan@skolnik.info>

Other credits

The development of this module has been financially supported by:

  • Odoo Community Association

Maintainers

This module is maintained by the OCA.

Odoo Community Association

OCA, or the Odoo Community Association, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the collaborative development of Odoo features and promote its widespread use.

This module is part of the OCA/server-tools project on GitHub.

You are welcome to contribute. To learn how please visit https://odoo-community.org/page/Contribute.