The columns in the grid can be used as the basis for a search form to appear above, below, or in place of, the grid. Searching is a way of querying data from the server using specified criteria (not filtering what already appears in the grid).

There are two approaches:

• a simple approach using a single field, or
  
• a more complex approach involving many fields.
  

These approaches use colModel names and url parameters from jqGrid and so can be called only on an already-constructed grid.