Extending length of text in Table 7 (Standard Texts)

Johannes_Nielsen · 2011-02-14

Hi guys, I need a little guidance

Our sales people requests extending the length of Description fields in Standard Texts table, for use on Sales Quotes.
(to allow each line to fill out more of the reports width)

This is easily done but to ensure no overflow errors can occur a lot of Forms and Tables, also using Standard Texts needs to be modified aswell.

We only need the longer lines on sales quotes.

Should I:

Modify every object that uses Standard Texts (and how do I positively identify all of these)
Somehow make the Standard Texts table/form only allow texts to be inserted onto Sales Quotes

I prefer the latter (if it's possible)

Or am I looking at this the wrong way? :shock:

DenSter · 2011-02-14

Johannes Nielsen wrote:

This is easily done

You obviously don't know what you're getting yourself into

You will have to expand the length of EVERYTHING that refers to standard text. Sales lines, Purchase lines, Journal lines, Ledger Entries, reports, forms, codeunits, XMLports, dataports, variables in every object, you name it. There is no such thing as expanding this for quotes only.

Expand the text length, and you will have to do overflow support calls for years.

Johannes_Nielsen · 2011-02-14

DenSter wrote:

Johannes Nielsen wrote:

This is easily done

Expand the text length, and you will have to do overflow support calls for years.

I don't want to do that! [-X

So it is'nt possible to make the lookupform or table aware of which form is calling it? (to ensure only Sales Quote form Lookup can make use of the lines with extra characters, and avoid possible overflow errors on all the others forms)

rhpnt · 2011-02-14

Johannes Nielsen wrote:

So it is'nt possible to make the lookupform or table aware of which form is calling it? (to ensure only Sales Quote form Lookup can make use of the lines with extra characters, and avoid possible overflow errors on all the others forms)

You'll have to do quite the opposite - to ensure all the other objects don't use the extended ones. :roll:

Take DenSter's advise.

BTW: Why would your salespeople like to have longer text lines as the page width? Let them answer this : How much charachters would like sir? 70,90,120?
The "length" of the text line depends on the charachters used; that means if you'll use words with a lot of "i"s or "j"s in them the text will be shorter than that with lots of "o"s and "u"s.
So, what's it gonna be fellas?

DenSter · 2011-02-14

Johannes Nielsen wrote:

to ensure only Sales Quote form Lookup can make use of the lines with extra characters, and avoid possible overflow errors on all the others forms

You're not thinking this one through. It's much more than just a form.

Which table holds sales quote lines? Does that table hold quotes only, or also other types of documents? What field is used to enter the description? What happens when you select a Standard Text, what happens with its Description? If you expand the length of the Standard Text and you select one that is say 60 characters, what is going to happen to the sales quote? What will you need to do to prevent them from selecting a long Standard Text for other document types? What will you need to do to prevent overflow issues when the quote is converted to an order? What will you need to do when a shipment is posted, when an invoice is posted, when a quote is archived?

Think a little beyond which form to use. Think about the process, think about the data types, think about the data flow. You will realize that this is a simple change, but a LOT more work than people think it is.

Johannes_Nielsen · 2011-02-14

Thanks rhpnt and DenSter

I think you're both absolutely right in your arguements.
Extending the length of description fields has overwhelming consequences.

I'll simply have to reject the request it seems . =;

Thank you both for your help and input!

Extending length of text in Table 7 (Standard Texts)

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