Any search view can be designated as a custom search template by setting its Used For value to Custom Search. This allows an end user to retrieve the template's information and use it to design an individualized search at runtime.

TeamConnect automatically creates a custom search template at the moment that a newly created object definition is saved. This default template contains most system fields, plus most of the custom fields that belong to the object definition's default category. If you change an object definition later to include more custom fields, you should revise the custom search template to contain the new fields that you want to allow to be searched.

It is strongly recommended that there be only one custom search template in existence at one time for a given object definition. When more than one template exists, and a user requests a custom search, the template that was created earliest will be chosen. If you wish to designate a search view as a template, and there is already an existing template, it is recommended that you first edit the search view that corresponds to the existing template, and uncheck every option in the "Used for" field of the General tab. That search view then will not be visible to custom search or any other operations. Then you may designate the new search view as a custom search template.

When a search view is used as a template, it is required that all of the "Used for" options, except Custom Search, be unchecked.

Columns that are defined in the Filter tab have an extra option, the Include by Default check-box. If checked, this means the column will appear as one of the choices that may be used as a criterion in a custom search. The end user may override this setting at runtime.

Columns that are defined in the Results Display tab have an extra option, the Include by Default check-box. If checked, this means the column will appear in the results of a custom search. The end user may override this setting at runtime.

A search view used as a template does not need, and will not use, Section Title information that is entered in the Filter tab of the search view definition.

Note: For Custom Search templates, it is important that each column in the Filter tab, and each column in the Results Display tab, has a unique value in its "order" attribute. For example, if you give two Filter columns the same value in "order", only one of those columns will appear at runtime to the end user.