A computer implemented approach which identifies secondary entities associated with a (primary) entity selected by a user, and enables the user to find entity instances of interest by performing a search based on the attributes of the user selected primary entity and one or more of the identified secondary entities. In an embodiment, the secondary entities are identified based on a schema defining the entity types in a database system. The search may be used to retrieve (and provide to the user) only the entity instances matching the conditions specified based on the attributes of the primary entity and the secondary entities. The user interface may accordingly be simplified.