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RocketRocket 

Replacing a field with the date and time field

Hi,

 

I have field on the object in which users have to enter Time and date manually.Now we want to replace that field with date and time field so that instead of typing  date and time manualy they can select date and time.

 

If we delete this field

 

1) What will happen to the existing data associated to the field.

 

What do you think are my options?What are your sugestions?.How Shall I proceed.

 

Please advise.

Thanks

 

Sgt_KillerSgt_Killer

If you delete an existing field, all its data will be deleted from the associated records. The options you have are

 

1. Data Migration of old field values to the new field and then delete the old field.

2. Remove the old field from the pagelayout and do not delete it. Use it as a historical field. Ask the users to enter the date & time in the new field.

3. Do not make the changes, just ask the users to keep using the old field.

David SupuranDavid Supuran

I disagree with #2 and #3

 

#2 This is a hack you would get from a half qualified Administrator or a lazy person.  Clean up your data and clean up your fields.  If it is no longer used, get rid of it.

 

#3 What he is proposing is a normalization which is ideal for searching indexing and clustered results in general.  How he chooses to display it is a presentation issue, but he is better off to convert the field to a DateTime versus what sounds like an open text field(s).

 

 

On to the main issue, you will probably want to do a mass export, back up all the field values and the record Ids they belong to, then convert the fields to the new DateTime format and reupload them.