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Separate an one existing field on two different forms into two separate fields

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Posted on by astamper 15

I'm a new administrator trying to catch up and make some change to our existing system and clean up some mistakes from the past. Our previous administrator had created a single field and placed it on multiple forms despite it needing two separate fields.

Is there a straightforward way to separate the existing data for this field into two and create two entirely separate entities?

I would think the best course of action may be to export the data, manually separate, then create a new field and upload the data accordingly?

The issue is this isnt a required field as it doesn't always apply.

Any insight would be helpful.

  • ba365guy Profile Picture
    ba365guy 2,946 on at
    RE: Separate an one existing field on two different forms into two separate fields

    Hi astamper

    Did you sort this out? If yes, please close the thread by marking an answer verified. 

  • Suggested answer
    ba365guy Profile Picture
    ba365guy 2,946 on at
    RE: Separate an one existing field on two different forms into two separate fields

    HI astamper

    I understood your scenario as below:

    Entity Name

    Form Name

    Attribute Name

    Remarks

    Entity1

    Form1

    Firmware

    Form1 is used for device1

    Form2

    Firmware

    Form2 is used for device2

    In this scenario, device1 and device2 should have been differentiated by another attribute (e.g. device type). I hope this field is available.

    "Firmware" - is to capture the firm of device. In general, reusing the same field in both scenarios is the best practice,

    BUT, if adding another field provide an advantage for business / user this can be given a thought. The necessity of adding new field should be properly justified.

    (the immediate advantage i see is it might help you in reporting to pick up the field easily. I hope you have a better list of advantages)

    The impact of splitting the past data (size of data, open/closed transactions, audit) should be properly analysed before taking this step. 

  • astamper Profile Picture
    astamper 15 on at
    RE: Separate an one existing field on two different forms into two separate fields

    Basically one field was created to track the specific firmware on a device, the issue it was generalized into one field and called *firmware* and used in two different forms that were designated for different devices we sell. So it currently is one field with a mix of firmware for two different devices.

    Ultimately I need to separate the two into fields for each specific form and sort out the existing data.

    Let me know if this makes sense.

  • Suggested answer
    ba365guy Profile Picture
    ba365guy 2,946 on at
    RE: Separate an one existing field on two different forms into two separate fields

    Can you explain the business scenario with more details?

    With the above limited information, what I can say is:

    If the field doesn't always apply, this can be either hidden / made non-mandatory depending on the business scenario.

    Cannot suggest to create another field and split the data without knowing the dependencies or consequences of this field.

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