Relationship fields are not searchable in the List View

[mfilteau]

Describe the Bug

If we have a collection where a relationship field is identified as searchable:

export const Orders: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'orders',
  admin: {
    useAsTitle: 'orderNumber',
    listSearchableFields: ['customer'], // <--- field is relationship type
  },
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'orderNumber',
      type: 'text',
      required: true,
    },
    {
      name: 'date',
      type: 'date',
    },
    {
      name: 'product',
      type: 'relationship',
      relationTo: 'products',
    },
    {
      name: 'customer',
      type: 'relationship',
      relationTo: 'customers',
    },
  ],
}

The field appears to the user as searchable (in the list search placeholder) but nothing happens.

2025-01-17_15-46-03.mp4

Link to the code that reproduces this issue

https://github.com/mfilteau/payload-bugs

Reproduction Steps

1. Seed the database

http://localhost:3000/api/seed

2. Go to the Orders list view in admin panel

3. See that the list should be searchable by Customer

4. Try entering a customer name in the search box.

Nothing happens.

Which area(s) are affected? (Select all that apply)

area: ui

Environment Info

Binaries:
  Node: 20.10.0
  npm: N/A
  Yarn: N/A
  pnpm: N/A
Relevant Packages:
  payload: 3.17.1
  next: 15.1.0
  @payloadcms/db-mongodb: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/email-nodemailer: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/graphql: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/next/utilities: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/payload-cloud: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/richtext-lexical: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/translations: 3.17.1
  @payloadcms/ui/shared: 3.17.1
  react: 19.0.0
  react-dom: 19.0.0
Operating System:
  Platform: win32
  Arch: x64
  Version: Windows 11 Pro
  Available memory (MB): 65457
  Available CPU cores: 16

[DanRibbens]

This isn't documented properly, but what you can do is include in your listSearchableFields the relationship properties you want to search. For example, instead of ['customer'] use ['customer.email', 'customer.name'] // etc.

This way you can search any fields of a relationship and get results back.

What we intend to do is add the searchable fields of the relationship automatically. That would either work by id, the useAsTitle field or the listSearchableFields of the related collection. This gets a little more complicated with polymorphic relationships, but that is something we can worry about later.

[mfilteau]

Hi Dan,

I did change the listSearchableFields to 'customer.name' before but I got misled by the fact that the UI was showing a wrong placeholder:

I just tried it again and the search works. It's just a placeholder bug now.