Increase the size of Item Description

lloydf

Hi there
I need to Increase the size of Item Description field from text 30 to text 100. I am aware that data in this field will be cascaded through other tables so these tables will need to be updated. How can I check which tables will be affected by an increase in the item description field?

Ian_Piddington10199

The first step would be to use the Developers Toolkit. In there you should be able to select the field on the table and then get a 'where used' list up. Its worth noting that this may not be all the places that can be effected though. If the value of the field is passed to a variable somewhere and then that is in turn passed to another variable or field the Toolkit will not show this. So you will need to do plenty of testing to confirm everything works correctly.

regards

Ian

selece28

I've met this problems before.
My suggestion. Don't change, but add new Description 3, 4, etc
If u change, it will coz you lots of trouble.

idiot

It depends on how important the description is.
My suggestion is to change.
Adding new fields might end up with more time & effort & $ spent, usually.
Food for thought: Is it faster to add more fields into the reports & aligning them or increasing the length of one field & aligning?

David_Singleton

lloydf wrote:

Hi there
I need to Increase the size of Item Description field from text 30 to text 100. I am aware that data in this field will be cascaded through other tables so these tables will need to be updated. How can I check which tables will be affected by an increase in the item description field?

Just don't do it, it will be a problem not just now, but for way into the future with support upgrades everything.

Add new fields.

Miklos_Hollender

+1 vote on adding desc 3, 4 fields

It's about the same level of effort, of changing the sourceexpression on reports at a lot of places etc.

The main difference is the severity of the issues. If desc 3 doesn't show up on report X that's not a huge problem, you just fix it whenever you get a bit of free time. But if you increase the field you'll get bug reports of text overflow errors which are complete showstoppers for major functionalities.

David_Singleton

Miklos Hollender wrote:

+1 vote on adding desc 3, 4 fields

It's about the same level of effort, of changing the sourceexpression on reports at a lot of places etc.

The main difference is the severity of the issues. If desc 3 doesn't show up on report X that's not a huge problem, you just fix it whenever you get a bit of free time. But if you increase the field you'll get bug reports of text overflow errors which are complete showstoppers for major functionalities.

Yes well put. That is for sure the key issue, that client that calls up at 4.50 on Firday afternoon with a system down issue.

Miklos_Hollender

Just one more hint. Even in those cases when we just used the standard Desc 1 + Desc 2 concatenated f.e. on invoices, using a portait layout and readable font sizes (9-10) meant the invoice line usually didn't fit into one line, we had to print every line in two lines.

Therefore I think unless there is a very good reason why not to, the 60 chars in Desc 1 and Desc 2 should usually be enough for a basic product description and the rest of the narrative could be handled as Extended Texts.

Revolution1210

Make sure that other methods cannot accommoate first:

Description 2
This field is already available for use on the Item. Not shown by default.
Description 2 is pulled through onto all sales and purchase documents etc.

Extended Texts
Defined against Items and can be pulled through onto relevant documents.

Comment Lines and Standard Text Lines can also be utilised to show additional information.

Also, if you really do need to extend the length of the Description field, bear in mind that the Description field on nearly all tables apart from the Item table is set to 50, so raising the Description on the Item table from 30 to 50 shouldn't cause too many conflicts.

lloydf

This has been a terrific dialogue, extremely valuable and informative. I would like to thank everyone for the advice. I think that I am going to opt for adding a third description field.
Am I correct in assuming that the existing Description field is mandatory?

Alex_Chow

lloydf wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that the existing Description field is mandatory?

Nope... The description field is not mandatory to post an order through.

jonsan21

I vote for Extended Text Hahaha...

Extended Text is standard feature, if it can meet the requirement, I think should use this one instead of adding Description 3 and 4 and so on

Rgds,

Jon.

David_Singleton

lloydf wrote:

... I think that I am going to opt for adding a third description field....

=D>

lloydf wrote:

...Am I correct in assuming that the existing Description field is mandatory?

Its not mandatory, but it is used in a lot of places that you might still want it, for example it is copied into Search Name, and this is indexed to make it faster to search for Items, and also so that you can type th Item Description into any Item No. field instead of the Item No.

I would add:
Validate(description,copystr("Description 3",1,30)); to the validate trigger on Desc 3.