Record Search Box in GridField - Searching Names (First and Last)

Using custom fields on a record type you can create separate fields for first name and last name. This removes the need to update a view or CDT.

This does not solve this issue. This issue is that the Appian record search does not return matches on formatted values (i.e. values generated by passing the data into an expression). In your proposed solution, the username value will be formatted to first and last name display values, using the user() function. The native search only searches on the raw data, in this case, the username. So even though the column displays "Wen" for first name, the data that backs that column is a username "whuynh", so searching "Wen" won't return this row. A search for "whuynh" will return the row. Does that make sense?

Starting in Appian 21.2 we have custom fields on record types which are different than fields you format on the grid.

https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/21.2/custom-record-fields.html

When referencing these fields, the search bar will pick up these fields

You could make your own custom search box bound to a local variable, and then filter the grid based on that variable, like so:

{
  a!localVariables(
    local!search:"",
  a!boxLayout(
    label:"users",
    contents:{
      a!textField(
        label: "",
        labelPosition: "ABOVE",
        placeholder: "Search Users",
        value: local!search,
        saveInto: local!search,
        refreshAfter: "UNFOCUS",
        validations: {}
      ),
  a!gridField(
    label: "Read-only Grid",
    labelPosition: "COLLAPSED",
    data: a!recordData(
      recordType: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User',
      filters: a!queryLogicalExpression(
        operator: "OR",
        filters: {
          a!queryFilter(
            field: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{username}username',
            operator: "includes",
            value: local!search
          ),
          a!queryFilter(
            field: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{firstName}firstName',
            operator: "includes",
            value: local!search
          ),
          a!queryFilter(
            field: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{lastName}lastName',
            operator: "includes",
            value: local!search
          ),
          a!queryFilter(
            field: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{email}email',
            operator: "includes",
            value: local!search
          )
        },
        ignoreFiltersWithEmptyValues: true
      )
    ),
    columns: {
      a!gridColumn(
        label: "user",
        sortField: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{username}username',
        value: fv!row['recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{username}username']
      ),
      a!gridColumn(
        label: "email",
        sortField: 'recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{email}email',
        value: fv!row['recordType!{SYSTEM_RECORD_TYPE_USER}User.fields.{email}email'],
        align: "START"
      )
    },
    validations: {},
    showSearchBox: false,
    showRefreshButton: false
)
    }))}

Brilliant as usual. Thanks, Danny!

Thanks for the suggestion. This looks like a reasonable solution. We want to use the native search, so Danny's solution would fit more nicely.

Danny, we've upgraded to 20.3 and I tried to implement this; however, 20.3 does not support the user() function in custom record fields. Do you know when function, rule, and relationships for custom record fields will be supported?