Derived fields not updating if the source field length is increased

[jon.douglas]

A colleague of mine has pointed out a potential issue around derived fields which can be summarised as follows:

Derived fields, when created, have a hidden attribute that is the length of the field they are deriving from AT THE POINT THEY ARE CREATED. If you subsequently change the length of the field being derived from, the derived field still retains the original length and will cause timeouts and “unknown errors” when trying to save things to the field being derived from that exceed the original length.

I raised this issue with support who explained that the link between the source and derived field is not dynamic i.e. the derived field only takes its attributes from the original source field which explains the scenario above.

The only solution found is to deleted the derived fields and re-introduce them. The obvious issue with this is that it not easy to re-populate derived fields to hundreds / thousands of records so we risk losing data from workspaces.

My request is therefore to introduce a dynamic relationship between source and derived fields.

[gasevsm]

Thank you for the feedback. Yes this is known limitation and we are planning to address in future. Its not currently on our immediate roadmap, nevertheless we know what needs be done. 😉
Meantime, kindly reach the admin area of the target workspace where derived fields reside > edit to UNderive the target field and save > edit again and bump its length to equal or higher value than the source field's length and save > edit field again and REdirive using same pivot picklist and source field.
Apologies for this inconvenience and hope you find the workaround acceptable. Best regards,

[benderk]

Thank you for submitting your idea. Have you tried the Modern Interface lately? We request that you review your idea in the context of the Modern interface. If your idea is not addressed, we invite you to create a new Idea in the context of Modern so that it can be addressed accordingly. Sincerely, Keri Bender | Global GTM Business Strategy Manager, Product Lifecycle Management