Title: [Plugin: Participants Database] Modify search capability
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# [Plugin: Participants Database] Modify search capability

 *  [jacksun](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jacksun/)
 * (@jacksun)
 * [13 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-participants-database-modify-search-capability/)
 * Can we expand the search so we can use multiple variables to search by, say first
   and last names?
    When you have 200 records with the same last name, being able
   to refilter those by first name before presenting them saves paging through 10
   or 20 pages of records for my front end web users.
 * Cheers,
    Wayne
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/participants-database/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/participants-database/)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Roland Barker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * (@xnau)
 * [13 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-participants-database-modify-search-capability/#post-2910889)
 * jacksun,
 * Yeah, this would be good, and I hadn’t anticipated the need for multiple search
   fields. I do plan to include this functionality in the future, but for now, I’m
   sorry to say it’s not possible.
 *  [herbisaacs](https://wordpress.org/support/users/herbisaacs/)
 * (@herbisaacs)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-participants-database-modify-search-capability/#post-2910998)
 * The multiple search fields capability is critical to my use of the database. 
   Has it been implemented in the 10 months since the last post?
 *  Plugin Author [Roland Barker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * (@xnau)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-participants-database-modify-search-capability/#post-2910999)
 * The next major release is still in process, and won’t be released for at least
   two months. However, you can “roll your own” search if you’re comfortable building
   it yourself by building your search terms into the shortcode using the WordPress
   function “do_shortcode” to build a filter string into the shortrcode….something
   like:
 * `<?php echo do_shortcode('[pdb_list filter="last_name='.$_GET['last_name'].'&
   first_name='.$_GET['first_name'].'"]') ?>`
 * It’s not easy, but it can be done.
 * The next update won’t actually include a multiple field search, it just makes
   it a lot easier to do and offer more flexibility in the implementation. It will
   still be a “roll you own” type situation, but I do plan to offer a plugin that
   will add this functionality to the main plugin. Again, some months off as it 
   is a major overhaul of the plugin.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘[Plugin: Participants Database] Modify search capability’ is closed to
new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/participants-database/assets/icon-256x256.jpg?rev=1389807)
 * [Participants Database](https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/participants-database/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/participants-database/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/participants-database/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/participants-database/reviews/)

## Tags

 * [filtering](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/filtering/)
 * [PDB](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/pdb/)

 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Roland Barker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * Last activity: [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-participants-database-modify-search-capability/#post-2910999)
 * Status: not resolved