CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi,

A previous developer set the "assistant phone number" custom field to an integer.  I would like to switch it to a Alphanumeric Text.  I know how to change the type of the field in the database, but I was wondering what else I needed to do/change for civicrm to accept the change.

Thanks,
Matt

Thanks lobo

For every custom field you create, CiviCRM creates a field in the MySQL table civicrm_custom_field. You have to look up your field in that table and change the type there. You also need to find which table CiviCRM created for your custom set (check in civicrm_custom_group and the name will start with civicrm_value....) and change the type of the corresponding field in there. And finally you will have to do the SQL command 'truncate table civicrm_cache'.

Example: I have created a custom data set called 'Extra data' with a field "service number' (which I set to integer and now want to make alpha). If this is the only custom dat set, a table called civicrm_value_extra_data_1 with a field called 'service_number_1'. It will also have added a field called 'service_number' to the file civicrm_custom_field. For both fields, you have to change the type.

If this is abacadabra to you, don't try this! In that case, consider hiring someone with MySQL capabilities to do it for you? (unfortunately you do need some techical expertise every now and then for CiviCRM).
Erik