Hello, 1) In Navision version 3.70, we had the need to increase the length of the “Description” field in the Item Card. The length is changed from 30 characters to 60. 2) Now, we have the problem that, the system is responding very slowly. Is this normal? Or is it because, we have screwed up something else? Although we have done many changes in the length of some fields on many tables, until today; we had no problem for months now. Is there anything special with the Item Card and its fields? 3) If I choose to bear with the slow speed, is there a possibility that we fall into a big trouble in the coming days? What do you suggest? Thanks.
Esat: Is the slow speed of Navision still a problem for you? We are considering making a similar change. Do you have any documentation about which tables you had to update for this change? Thanks, Tina Bixby
Expanding the field will not affect your processing speed. It MIGHT slow down if you’re searching on the description field. But I bet my money that your slowdown wasn’t caused by the length of the description.
What about the “Description 2” field in the Item table? Can’t you use that field instead?
We may use Description2. However, it is not displayable everywhere Description is. (Item Journal, for example.) So, it only serves as a place to enter additional descriptive information; it does not really work to use Description + Description2 as one long description.
We needed 60 for our descriptions also but We use exactly that Item.“Description”+’ '+Item.“Description 2” We’ve added Description 2 to all the forms & reports that are necessary (ei. Picking tickets, Po’s Invoices, etc.) No problems
Plus, it is a LOT easier to maintain and upgrade an installation that makes use of standard length fields as opposed to “enlarged” fields. You will know what I mean when you start getting overflow errors in places you never thought about.
We’re on 2.6 but I can’t image there is much of a fundamental difference between the versions… We have expanded not only the item description but also the customer name, address fields (1 and 2) ship to code (to 20 from 10) and the address fields there as well (which impact sales orders, shipments, invoices, etc.). There has been no effect on performance and we have a 16Gb database.
Is there any indication that Navision might address this issue in a future release? This is my third ERP implementation, and I’ve always had to increase the size of the Item Description field to at least 40 characters. 30 is just not enough. Note: I have one request to expand the Description out to 90 characters. Any thoughts on doing that?
I would suggest creating a new field on the item card for this larger description. You could call it “Item Details” or something like that. It is much easier to pull that information from the Item card then it is to make all the necessary program changes to extend the description field length. Trust me that upgrading a database that has changed the length of standard Navision fields is no fun at all.
Tina, We have changed it throughout our system to 120 characters and it works just fine. If you use the toolkit you should be able to find all the places where it is used pretty easily, although sometimes the toolkit misses one or two out. Reports are a different matter though, trying to get the lines to wrap nicely, i.e. break on a space rather than doing an ugly break after a fixed no. of characters requires a lot more effort. Meint
We have implemented in some cases a special text to the Item like the Comment. Then you have as much text as you need. We only need to add the text to purchase order lines, sales order lines and change some reports. This is not so much work. As another solution i prefer a new field “Description 3” at the Item-table. It prevents you from a lot of work and errors! No matter of this: The speed of navision does not slow down, if you increase the length. Regards, Frank
Thanks to all the contribution, to this thread. It was easy to notice that, the slowdown of speed was only occurring during the search of the items, because the customer was searching items, with respect to the Description field. The suggestion from Mindi Estrella was quite clever. And I decided to go that way. However, I share the opinion that MBS/Navision Team should think of enlarging the Item Descripion field to at least 50 or higher. Otherwise why don’t we ask them to rename it to ITEM ABBREVIATION ? [:p] Thanks to all.
In fact changing the item description to 50 gives you almost no troubles, as most tables (sales lines, purchase lines… ) are already having a 50 character’s description, so using the developer toolkit you can change it pretty fast without modifying much the standard. Over 50 problems start… [:P]