Adding the external identifier to full-text searching
Many CiviCRM installations contain legacy data that has different unique identifiers than CiviCRM's contact ID. For example, you might have a membership system that identifies contacts with a membership number. Your staff will be used to using this identifier to locate data quickly. CiviCRM provides the external identifier field to hold this information and you can continue to use it to find your contacts.
CiviCRM also has a custom full-text search that allows you to search multiple contact fields at the same time. It is available as a block in Drupal. Unfortunately the custom search does not include the external identifier as a searchable field.
How to do it…
We will navigate to and open up the custom search PHP file and make a small edit to include the external identifier field in searches.
Make sure that the Full-text Search block is visible in Drupal:
Navigate to
/sites/all/modules/civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Search/Custom/FullText.php.Find...
