Salesforce Marketing Cloud - SFMC Quick Search Chrome Extension
Anyone who has ever searched for a specific email, data extension or query in the Marketing Cloud will have noticed that the search functions available in the SFMC interface often do not provide satisfactory results. In particular, the search for content elements and data extensions is often difficult.
The “SFMC Quick Search” browser extension developed by DEselect promises to remedy the situation. It is a free extension for Chrome that allows you to search various Marketing Cloud objects: Data Extensions, Automations, Data Filters, Query Activities, and all content builder content.
Once the extension is installed, it can be used whenever you are logged into an SFMC account. If you search for an object, the extension shows you the path in SFMC under which it can be found.
We tried SFMC Quick Search to see how well the search worked. In doing so, we came to different results:
- When searching in Content Builder, content paths are only reliably displayed up to the 2nd folder level — for all other content, the path is usually only “root”.
- In addition to the content you are looking for, many irrelevant elements are often displayed. This applies to emails as well as to templates or content blocks.
- The exact object type must always be specified for the search. When searching for a content block, this means, for example, that you have to know in advance exactly whether it is a layout, freeform, button block, etc. But who always has this information ready? You may therefore have to try out different types of content here.
- Furthermore, a search with placeholders is also not possible; you need to know the exact and full name of the content element; no similar results are displayed.
Unfortunately, the same points also apply to automations. Yet — in Content Builder — you can get much further with SFMC Quick Search than with SFMC's own search.
On the other hand, the search for data extensions, data filters and query activities works absolutely smoothly. Matches for incomplete object names are also found here and the search works regardless of the folder level.
Overall, it is a very easy-to-use extension that makes it much easier to search for objects, especially in the area of data extensions, SQL query activities and automations.
But how secure is enlargement? Can you add them without hesitation?
In our opinion, YES — because no data is stored, only search queries are made via API, the search results themselves consist only of metadata.
The current session of the business unit in which you are located is used for authentication. This means that the search only works if you are currently logged in; user permissions are also respected. Using the search, you only find the objects that you have access to anyway.
Conclusion: Even though there is still a bit of need for improvement when searching for Content Builder objects, the extension is a very helpful tool that makes it incredibly easy for us to work in accounts with extensive folder structures and is also secure and easy to use.
You can install the extension here.
