TL;DR,
You use Odoo every day, but probably at 30% of its potential. Most of the minutes you waste don’t come from the tool, they come from features nobody has shown you. Here are 10 concrete features, saved filters, duplicate merging, scheduled activities, bulk followers, Superuser mode, clean archiving, that save you time every single week, with no development and no paid modules. Each one takes a few clicks. All are available in Odoo 19.
At Nexuro, we’ve been an Official Odoo Partner for four years. We see the same thing at nearly every client: the tool is powerful, but underused. Teams re-enter data by hand, hunt for records manually, and rebuild the same filters ten times a day.
The problem isn’t Odoo. It’s the lack of the right habits. Here are ours.
1. Save your filters so you never have to rebuild them
You probably run the same searches every morning: “unpaid invoices”, “this month’s opportunities”, “tasks assigned to me”. Rebuilding those filters by hand is pure waste.
How to do it:
- Build your search in the bar (filters + groupings + sort order).
- Click Favourites in the search bar dropdown.
- Click Save Current Search and give it a name.
- Tick Default Filter if you want it applied automatically when the view opens.
Colleagues can share the same favourite by ticking Shared. Result: everyone opens the same view, without having to rebuild it.
2. Win the war on duplicates with contact merging
Two records for the same customer means two separate histories and twice the risk of error. Odoo can merge them cleanly.
How to do it:
- In the contacts list view, tick the records you want to merge.
- Go to Actions ⚙ → Merge.
- Choose the master record (the one that will remain).
On merging, the secondary contacts enrich the master record: any blank fields on the master are filled with values from the others, and the full history (quotes, e-mails, activities) is attached to the master. No data lost, one clean record.
3. Schedule an activity directly on the record, never outside Odoo
A sticky note on your screen and a mental reminder are not a system. Odoo’s activities are.
How to do it:
- Open any record (contact, quote, project, invoice).
- Click Schedule an Activity.
- Choose the type (call, e-mail, meeting, to-do), the due date, and the person responsible.
The activity appears on the record, in the responsible person’s schedule, and triggers a reminder. The activity icon turns orange as the deadline approaches, and red once it’s overdue. Nothing falls through the cracks between two meetings.
4. Understand the two types of contacts (and stop mixing them up)
In Odoo, a contact is either a company or an individual. A company can contain secondary contacts (billing addresses, delivery addresses, and key contacts).
Structuring this hierarchy correctly changes everything: an invoice goes to the right address, a quote to the right person, and a “by company” report finally consolidates all your contacts from the same organisation. Five minutes of setup at the start saves hours of sorting later.
5. Add or remove followers in bulk
Followers receive notifications for a record. Managing them one by one when a colleague joins or leaves is endless. Odoo handles it in bulk.
How to do it:
- In list view, tick the relevant records.
- Go to Actions ⚙ → Add Followers (or Remove Followers).
- Select the person or people.
A new sales rep taking over a portfolio of 80 opportunities? They become a follower on all 80 in a single action.
6. Activate Superuser mode to unblock a situation
An action blocked by an access right, right in the middle of a rush? Superuser mode (developer mode) temporarily bypasses security and access rules to help you diagnose or unblock.
How to do it:
- Go to Settings → Activate the developer mode.
- Enable Superuser from the developer menu (the bug icon 🐞).
A word of caution: this is an administration tool, not an everyday working mode. Reserve it for configuration and troubleshooting, never for routine operations. If in doubt, ask your Odoo Partner.
7. Archive instead of delete
Deleting a product, a contact, or a price list risks breaking a history (an old invoice pointing to that product, for instance). Archiving is almost always the right answer.
How to do it:
- Select one or more records.
- Go to Actions ⚙ → Archive.
The record disappears from current views but remains linked to its history. To find it again, add the Archived filter in the search bar, and restore it in one click. Zero data destroyed, zero orphaned invoices.
8. Display 1,000 rows at once for your exports
By default, a list view paginates at 80. For an export or a bulk check, clicking through page after page is a waste of time.
How to do it:
- In list view, find the pagination counter in the top right (e.g. 1-80 / 1,240).
- Click directly on the counter and type the range you want (e.g. 1-1000).
You display 1,000 records at once, ready to tick, export, or edit in bulk.
9. Search in plain English with “Ask AI Search”
Odoo 19 includes AI-assisted search. Rather than stacking filters, you simply describe what you’re looking for.
How to do it:
- In the search bar, activate Ask AI Search.
- Type your request in plain language: “unpaid invoices more than 30 days old for Belgian customers”.
Odoo translates the sentence into filters. Handy for one-off queries you don’t want to save as a favourite. Worth testing, but always worth checking: for figures going to a board meeting, we always verify the result.
10. Match your fields with global filters
In a multi-company or multi-report environment, field matching on global filters lets you apply a single filter (a period, a company, a currency) across multiple datasets whose fields don’t share the same name.
In practice: you filter “Q2 2026” once, and the dashboard aligns sales, invoices, and expenses to the same period, even when the date field has a different name in each source. That’s the foundation of clean reporting you can present in a board meeting, and exactly what we build for our clients.
Summary table
| # | Feature | Where to find it | What you gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saved filters | Search bar → Favourites | Never rebuild a search again |
| 2 | Contact merging | Actions → Merge | One clean record, zero duplicates |
| 3 | Scheduled activities | Record → Schedule an Activity | No follow-up ever forgotten |
| 4 | Contact types | Contact record (company / individual) | Right document, right person |
| 5 | Bulk followers | Actions → Add / Remove Followers | Portfolio handover in one click |
| 6 | Superuser mode | Dev mode → Superuser 🐞 | Unblock / diagnose |
| 7 | Archiving | Actions → Archive | Clean up without breaking history |
| 8 | Display 1,000 rows | Click on the pagination counter | Bulk exports & checks |
| 9 | Ask AI Search | Search bar → Ask AI | Plain-language search |
| 10 | Global filters | Dashboards → field matching | Aligned multi-source reporting |
In summary
Not one of these ten features requires any development, a paid module, or lengthy training. They are habits. Taken together, they easily add up to several hours a week recovered from low-value manual work.
That’s our conviction at Nexuro: a CRM or ERP creates no value because it’s installed, but because it’s genuinely used. Most of the Odoo instances we take over are underused, not misconfigured.
If you’d like a clear picture of your installation, what’s well set up, what’s lying dormant, what’s costing you time, we’re happy to discuss it simply. We offer a free audit, with no commitment. Response within 24h, from Timothy or me, never a bot.
Frequently asked questions
How do I save a search filter in Odoo so I can reuse it?
Build your search in the bar (filters, groupings, sort order), then open the Favourites menu and click Save Current Search. Give it a name, and tick Default Filter to have it applied automatically when the view opens. Ticking Shared gives the whole team access to the same favourite. Your recurring searches are never rebuilt by hand again.
How do I merge two duplicate contact records in Odoo?
In the contacts list view, tick the relevant records, then go to Actions ⚙ → Merge and choose the master record. Any blank fields on the master are filled with values from the secondary records, and the full history (quotes, e-mails, activities) is attached to the record you keep. Result: one clean record, no data lost, no duplicates.
How do I archive a record in Odoo rather than deleting it?
Select one or more records, then go to Actions ⚙ → Archive. The record disappears from current views but remains linked to its history: an old invoice that pointed to that product is never broken. To find it again, add the Archived filter in the search bar and restore it in one click. Our rule at Nexuro: archive almost always, delete almost never.
How do I display 1,000 rows at once in an Odoo list view?
By default, a list view paginates at 80. Find the pagination counter in the top right (e.g. 1-80 / 1,240), click directly on it, and type the range you want, for example 1-1000. Odoo immediately displays 1,000 records, ready to tick, export, or edit in bulk. A simple habit that makes a real difference for exports and volume checks.
How does the plain-language ‘Ask AI Search’ feature work in Odoo 19?
In the search bar, activate Ask AI Search, then describe what you need in plain language: “unpaid invoices more than 30 days old for Belgian customers”. Odoo translates the sentence into filters, without stacking criteria by hand. Handy for one-off queries. Our advice: for figures going to a board meeting, always verify the result.
