What a pain it is to work with these extended descriptions. Granted it is better than a few versions ago. But why can't we just increase the description field size and ditch exteded descriptions all together.
Or better yet, include the extended description field in the CI_Item table instead of in it's own ExtendedDescription table. It becomes real slow to create crystal reports when you have to go through CI_Item to get to CI_ExtendedDescription. Painfully slow.
by: Dan L. | over a year ago | Manufacturing
Comments
I hate the CI_ExtendedDescription table.
Yes, when creating Crystal Reports, this is a real pain to get the Extended Description showing.
I favor having one large description field with options during program display and printing to control what you see.
Totally agree. I hate the whole extended description thing. Should have just lengthened the field for the description.
This change would be the best change Sage could make. The extended description is great to have but hard to work with in other modules.
I agree whole-heartedly. The extended description is a pia.
Unneeded key strokes.
In addition to the challenge that the "extended description" presents in writing Crystal Reports, often in "Look-ups" only the Description is available to search and the CI_ExtDesc is not available to add to a Custom Look-up.
Also need to lengthen the Description in Miscellaneous Item Codes while you're at it! ;)
If Sage insists on keeping this darn table, then give us the ability to maintain it from an administrator's point of view: The purge utility is five-n-dime. To have to go into DFDM to open up CI_Item and clear that key is ridiculous!
Adding the extended description field to reports makes them all run so slow.
Please listen to our please.
Longer Field lengths are rarely a problem for descriptions and such. With modern laser printers, 8pt is clean and generally easy to read. Accounting database volume size is such a tiny nit in space these days that even if the database size doubled or tripled over 1 release, it would not me a problem.
Couldn't agree more. Having the short and extended descriptions fields may have made sense 10 years ago when PC's were slow. I really don't see the advantage today in having the 2 fields. In crystal you can always design a report to only show the first 30 characters of a field, if you don't want the whole field to print.
Agree!
I agree that the description needs to be made longer. I do see the great potential for the extended description and how usefull it could be, but still feel the description needs to be made longer. 30 characters is rediculous. Get with the times.
It's ridiculous, because if there's an extended description, the entire description is repeated, and if not, ***Not on file*** displays, so there's no way to use *just* the extended description in a report or look-up. Your option is for repeated information, or less than you need. Please fix this, Sage.
We use both description and have some items in the extended description but CANNOT search both fields with one search. absolutely ridiculous!!! Please fix SAGE!!!
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we have long descriptions and its a pain to find what you are looking for with such a short field.
I totally agree. We are constantly abbrivating our item descriptions. In addtion they should also add to the OTEM CODE. More and more manufacturers product numbers are getting longer each year.The very least sage can do is increase the item numbers by 5 characters and the discription by perhaps 15 characters and keep the extended discription for people who want to use it or are already are using it.
Clients, who are searching for items in ALE, have to do two look ups. One against the std desc and another against the extended. Either get rid of Extended Descriptions or dump all descriptions to the Extended Description File. Then we can search on one field.
I would like to see the extended descriptions added to the BI explorer reports. It would also be great to just have it rolled into the regular description.
Extended descriptions are a time wasting pain! Extra button clicks ALL the time. Better to simply lengthen the "regular" description.
Just a thought: Increase the length of the description field, then have the text change color at 30 chars, change back at 40, change again at 50, &c., to let the user know they have passed a threshold where the text may not fit on a given form.
Can someone at Sage respond to this and let us know whether this request is even being discussed? Every time I talk to someone at Sage I'm told the ideas with the most votes are looked at first. This request is in the top 10 most voted on enhancement requests and still no answer from Sage.
DSD CIED enhancement solves this issue check it out...
https://www.dsdinc.com/enhancements/marketplace/products/cied-c-i-expanded-item-description
Ashley, thanks for pointing out this enhancement, but Sage owners should not have to pay for third-party enhancements for something that should be standard in 2024. I understand when MAS90 was created, IT was in a much different world and had many limitations, and that is most likely the reason for having a short description and extended description fields. Those limitations no longer exist and haven't for quite some time. When Sage 100 was being re-written from the ground up for version 4, ALL database fields should have been expanded to accommodate whatever data size some may need. There are still many fields in Sage 100 that are way too small and should have been expanded years ago.
On a related note... Extra frustrating is seeing other modules hijack the CI_ExtendedDescription table as well.
For example, why is the Step Text for Production Management's Work Tickets stored in the CI Extended Descriptions table? We generate a few hundred Work Tickets per day with instruction text on almost every step. The text for each step from each Work Ticket creates a unique entry in CI Extended Descriptions. Just seems unnecessary when they could just have a PM_WorkTicketStepText table.