Standard Search and Simple Search
The user management engine (UME) offers standard search and simple search functions. These search functions search the UME data sources for matching principals: users, groups, and roles. If you build a search function into your application, you must decide which search function to use.
Both search functions are functionally equivalent. In both you can specify whether to search with wildcards or not. In both you can search case sensitive or case insensitive. The main difference is that with simple search, you do not need to explicitly state which attributes you are searching. The attributes searched are determined by the configuration of the UME.
Standard Search
The standard search function is the more flexible of the two search functions. You can use this search function to search any attribute in any namespace. However, this flexibility means that you must specify the namespace and attribute in every search. In a standard search you create a search filter object and set the search filter attributes. You then create a search result object and store the results there.
Simple Search
The simple search function searches the most common attributes for your search parameter. You provide the search parameters in the search method for the principal type and create a search result object with the search results. This is the same simple search function used by the identity management user interface of SAP NetWeaver Application Server (AS) Java. The results you get with this function match the results you get with identity management. There is no need for you to specify the namespace and attribute name in your search. UME properties define the attributes searched for each principal type.
For user principals, the UME searches the attributes firstname, lastname, and uniquename by default.
You can configure which attributes the UME searches. To change the attributes searched, you must configure UME properties.
More information:
SAP Help Portal: Configuring Simple Search