If you often build automation flows in Power Automate, you’ve probably used the “List rows” action to pull data from Microsoft Dataverse. It’s useful for basic data retrieval—but when your data grows or you need to search across multiple tables, it starts to hit limitations.
That’s where the “Search Rows (Preview)” action comes in. It lets you perform fast, intelligent, and relevance-based searches across multiple tables in Dataverse—all within a single flow. In this blog, you’ll learn when and how to use it, how it differs from “List rows,” and how it can make your flows more efficient and scalable.
Why “List Rows” Isn’t Always Enough
You might already know that the “List rows” action works well for straightforward queries. But as your data grows, so do its challenges:
- Row limits: By default, it retrieves only up to 5,000 rows (and with pagination, up to 100,000).
- Performance issues: Large datasets can slow down your flows.
- Limited search flexibility: It doesn’t support fuzzy matching, keyword search, or relevance-based ranking.
If your goal is to find records based on a search term—like finding Leads, Contacts, or Accounts that match a keyword—“List rows” isn’t built for that.
Meet the “Search Rows (Preview)” Action
The “Search Rows (Preview)” action in the Microsoft Dataverse connector changes how you retrieve data. Instead of structured OData filters, it uses Dataverse Search—a full-text, relevance-based search engine.
This means you can search for a keyword across multiple tables, apply filters, and instantly retrieve records that match your search intent.
Here’s what makes it powerful:
- Relevance-based search — Prioritizes the most relevant matches first.
- Performance optimized — Faster lookups across large datasets.
- Smart filters — Supports Boolean operators, wildcards, proximity search, fuzzy matching, and even regular expressions.
- Dynamic content — Gives you extra details like search score, highlights, and record IDs.
How to Implement the “Search Rows” Action in Power Automate
To implement this in Power Automate, follow these steps:
1. Enable Relevance Search: Ensure that Relevance Search is enabled in your Dataverse environment. This is a prerequisite for using the “Search rows” action.
2. Create a New Flow:
- Go to Power Automate and create a new flow.
- Add a trigger that suits your scenario (e.g., when a record is created or modified).
3. Add the “Search rows” Action:
- Click on “New step” and search for “Search rows”.
- Select the “Search rows (Preview)” action...Read More>>
