Export Field Dependencies

Related products: None

Situation: You have a new field you’ve added that needs to supplant an older, commonly used field that is now out of date. Either you want to preserve the old data or you are changing data types, in any event you need the new field rather than pump different data into the old field.

 

Problem: To see the field dependancies you need to use the Admin>Data Management>object>Dependencies and then for each dependency type (rule, report, relationships, etc.) you need to select your field, then view the various dependencies. For a popular field this is a cumbersome workflow as you aren’t really able to navigate very well without a large number of clicks.

 

Request: I would like the bility to select a field in dependencies and export an xls/csv file that shows column headers for each dependencies type, and the rows listing each dependency. This would make it easier to systematically make and record your changes to make sure you aren’t breaking a connection or report by not making a field swap when you should have.

+1 this would super helpful for me right now with migrating to NXT and having a lot of field changes in SFDC.


@bradley agree with you, this would really help in avoiding more clicks. We are in process of redesigning this page. I am sharing this feedback with the product team. 

You are welcome to share more feedback on this.Thanks!!


@bradley agree with you, this would really help in avoiding more clicks. We are in process of redesigning this page. I am sharing this feedback with the product team. 

You are welcome to share more feedback on this.Thanks!!

I mean, if you want to go next-level awesome, allow me to swap out a field of the same data type. If I want to migrate from Field A (old field) to Field B (new field) let me do it with a few clicks, and anywhere there was a dependency on Field A, it is now replaced with Field B. It might work with different data types, but that might be a version 2.0 thing. I’d be fine if this doesn’t happen in real-time, though that would be ideal.


@sai_ram Disappointing to see this is not on the road map at all.


@bradley I am sorry for disappointment, I will get the reason for this. 

@All, I would request you to up-vote to show your interest. 


@bradley We are working to make the dependencies tab UX simpler. However swapping of fields of same data type is something we are not looking at currently.


@bradley We are working to make the dependencies tab UX simpler. However swapping of fields of same data type is something we are not looking at currently.

Makes sense - the field swapping was really a separate request, but it would make things much easier for admins.


Not sure if this is still in your domain @ssamarth but I see that Data Management 2.0 includes an export option for dependencies which is rad.

 

Less rad is that the export contains cells with long lists of csv’s. 

Application Area Instance Name Dependent Fields
Rule Rule_Name Field1, Field2, Field3, Field4, etc.

 

This isn’t super great for readability, meaning for each Instance Name you need to take a few extra steps to split the values on a comma and then turn the column of values into rows.

 

Would it be possible to have the export something more closely resembling this:

Application Area Rule C360
Instance Name Rule_Name LayoutName: Layout_Name
Values (aka fields)

Field1

Field1
Field2 Field2
Field3 etc.
Field4  
etc.  

 

For me at least, application area isn’t as important (I would be fine if the export concatenated Application Area and Instance Name into one field e.g. Rule: Rule_Name) but having each of the fields as a value in its own cell would make the export much more usable.

 

@anirbandutta or @Cornelia let me know if this should be its own request.

 

FYI: @darkknight @zach_davis 


@anirbandutta @community-admin ?


Let me check back on the latest for this.