large amount of data in the grid so I dont want it to show until user types in search, how can I do that, also need it to search non string fields as well
If you are using search functionally in CRUD pages you can apply the filter expression when the data are loaded for the first time to bind the DataGrid. You can also adjust the filter expression to search not only strings with Contains() but search other property types with Equals() or you can simply ToString() all property values and treat them as strings.