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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Archived) / Item Description Too S...
Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Archived)

Item Description Too Short

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Posted on by Alan Setchell 100

We have recently procured Dynamics Nav 2009 to replace our existing system. We provided the Microsoft Partner a very detailed specififcation of our requirements based on our current experience. One of the concerns on our current system was the length of the item description fields. Description 1 and Description 2 were limited to 40 characters. The Sales person at the Microsoft Partner assured us this would not be an issue with Dynamics because field lengths could be customised to our requirements.

I have now found out that the length of the description fields in Nav is 30 characters which is worse than what we have currently and the implimentation engineer is saying these field lengths cannot be changed because there could be too many undesireable knock on effects in the system.

Is it true that these fields cannot have their lengths changed?

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  • Verified answer
    Laura Nicolas Profile Picture
    Laura Nicolas 512 on at

    You have Description and Description 2. Both are 30 characters long, so you have up to 60 characters for the item description.

    It is true that it can be customized and it is also true that it's not easy and that you'll be doing modifications related to this for a long period...

    Talk to your partner... if you know the risk (and assume the cost of it), then the modification can be done.

    Consider also using the Extended Text functionality. Extended text will be printed on documents (quotes, orders, invoices, etc. - depending on the setup - ), but will not be shown in NAV reports, forms or pages.

  • Alan Setchell Profile Picture
    Alan Setchell 100 on at

    Thanks for your reply, I must confess it is not the answer I was hoping for. Regarding talking to the partner, I am struggling with that one at the moment. This very specific point was raised prior to placing the order and we were advised there would be no problem doing this. Now the order has been placed we are told something different! I am no longer sure what to believe. This is a big issue for us, we have over 8000 items which are imported from a supplier on a monthly basis, truncating 25% of both description fields will give us problems. Had we have known this we would not have gone with Nav 2009.

  • Laura Nicolas Profile Picture
    Laura Nicolas 512 on at

    How long can their descriptions be?

    Do those long descriptions need to be shown everywhere? Or just need the full description in some places?

    As I said, consider using the Extended Text funtionallity.

    Consider also adding a third description field in the item card (up to 250 characters)

  • Alan Setchell Profile Picture
    Alan Setchell 100 on at

    Their descriptions currently occupy two description fields each 40 characters long. 2300 of the 8000 items use both descriptions to their full capacity ie 80 characters total.

    The descriptions are a series of product parameters concatenated (with spaces between obviously).

    I am not quite sure where we will need to see them at present becuase we are still waiting for Nav 2009 to be installed, we are at the data migration phase. So I am struggling a bit to visualise where in the system they will be used. The supplier had suggested an extended text field as a thrid field, but I don't like the maintenance of keeping three fields of similar data up to date and it  cuts across my views on normalisation (ie data should be entered once and only once).

    I was hoping that with discipline and knowledge of the database structure it would be simply a case of changing the field length in the underlying table and all other tables where the data is replicated, yes there would be potential upgrade issues, but with systematic change control I would have expected these to be manageable.

  • Matt Traxinger Profile Picture
    Matt Traxinger 302 on at

    I will expand a little on the reason that it can be changed, but probably should not be. Say you change the description length in the item master. You now have to find every place in two million lines of code where that description is copied to another field / variable. You have to make sure that each of those is large enough to hold the new value. Next you have to repeat that process for EVERY one of those fields / variables, and again, and again.

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    I would agree a 3rd description field is probably the best way to go here.  We currently need 60 chars ourselves and putting "description" & "description 2" together really isn't a problem at all.

    The code for the field is as easy as ("description"+' '+"description 2") now I have a "whole description".  And I show them only where i need them ie/ sales line, purchase line, reports, forms.

    As for the sales person, i guess he was just being a sales person.  That being said it's his job to understand these complications.  Yes, the field size can be changed but this a field used in alot of places which will be time consuming and, as stated above, will have to be done again & again with every upgrade.

    We had a similar issue with address length and creating "Address 3" & "address 4" was easier than changing the standard lengths of the fields already their.

  • Vshal Profile Picture
    Vshal 285 on at

    I'd second Savatage on this by adding a 3rd field rather than changing the size of standard Description field.

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    It is generally not recommended to increase the field length, although it is possible.  There is a description2 field that can be used.  You can also create a new user defined field and make it as long as you need and then customize any reports or pages/formss where you need to display it.

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