Improved Backend Logic on Search Operations

In order to improve the performance of our backend system, we are introducing a new search algorithm to our API. This will give your users much faster responses when they search through their data, especially on large data sets!

Affected endpoints are:

GET /contacts?search=Jingle+Bells
GET /products?search=Jingle+Bells
GET /purchase_corrective_invoices?search=Jingle
GET /purchase_credit_notes?search=all+the+way
GET /purchase_invoices?search=Oh+what+fun
GET /purchase_quick_entries?search=it+is+to+ride
GET /sales_corrective_invoices?search=in+a
GET /sales_credit_notes?search=one+horse
GET /sales_estimates?search=open+sleigh
GET /sales_invoices?search=dashing
GET /sales_quick_entries?search=through
GET /sales_quotes?search=the+snow
GET /services?search=Happy+Holidays
GET /stock_items?search=Happy+Holidays

Due to the nature of the change being made there are a few drawbacks that you may wish to consider. Firstly, search terms are only considered at the beginning of a word. E.g. when a vendor is named “Rudolph Reindeer”, searching for “deer” will not be successful, yet “rein” will be. Also, searching for special characters is no longer possible. Finally, the order of the results will be changed, but for the better. We hope you still see these changes as improvements and are happy with much faster results.

These changes will become effective in the week commencing 16th December 2019.

Edit (2019-12-04)

An earlier version of this post mentioned 9th December 2019 as the expected release date. This has been moved forward by one week.