Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

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Posted on by Community Member Microsoft Employee

Dear all,

We are considering a modification of one of the product dimension fields, color for example.

We are planning to use it to store information about the product variant "manufacturer" which would include one of the following scenarios:

1. To change the label to "Manufacturer" and to extend the field length to 60 characters.

2. To change the label to "Manufacturer" and to add a new field to the product dimensions table called "Description" which has 60 characters. To add a display method for to all forms where we select the product dimension for the "Description"

The end goal is to describe our product variant with more than 10 characters.

The preferred scenario is scenario 1. But we are not sure about the implications this may have to the functionality and the performance. In your opinion what would the risks be in changing the product dimension field length from 10 to 60 characters?

Thanks in advance.

BR,

Simeon

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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Just to share what we decided.

We made the decision to use Engineering change management and use only one product dimension -version.

Every other characteristic will be maintained in the engineering attributes. Worst case we will add the variant description wherever needed.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Thank you too Andre, I think this is the more mature approach.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Thank you Cody, this was a very helpful advise.
André Arnaud de Cal... 291,240 Super User 2024 Season 2 on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Hi Simeon,

You already got valuable replies above. I would like to share an additional thought.

There was a recent question on this forum about an attempt to extend the length of the serial number to 50 characters. That caused a lot of issues, like not being able to view the on-hand information.

I would suggest to go for the option provided by Colby.
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ColbyGallagher 3,664 on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Changing the label on the product dimension is fine, we've done that at many clients.

There is already a product dimension description field, what would be different about your description field?

In the past, I've modified the Released Product -> Product tab in action pane -> Released product variants -> Generate Descriptions button to also overwrite the "Product Name" field with the variant description:

This causes the default "Product name" display method that exists on Sales Lines, On hand, etc, to show the main product name + your variant name:

That would be a much less invasive mod, you're just modifying how one button acts on one form.
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WillWU 22,350 on at

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RE: Things to consider when changing product dimension field length

Hi partner,

Of course you can extend it, but I think adding a new field is the more logical way, which follows the OCP principles better.