We are adding a new tag “Siebel Best Practice” for our readers, which will cover Siebel best practice for all categories. Presenting first article in this series.

Custom Foreign Key Columns Differ in Length from Destinations
Custom Foreign Keys do not have the same length as the destination columns to which they are joined.

Impacted space
Data Integrity, Runtime Error

Significance
Assume that two columns used in a join are defined as follows:
• TABLE_A.COLUMN_A Varchar(15)
• TABLE_B.COLUMN_B Varchar(50)

If not used carefully, a value could be placed in COLUMN_B that was longer than 15 characters. When a join is performed between TABLE_A and TABLE_B, such a record will cause a run-time error in the mobile client indicating “Right truncation of string data”.

This can often occur when columns are used for more than one purpose, as in the case of _XM table, where a column might be used as a CFK in one entity type, but is made to represent some other type of data for a different entity type.

Suggestion
Ensure that both columns used in a custom join have the same underlying size defined on the column definition.

Let us know what is your opinion about this initaitve of Siebel Best Practice tag.Leave your comment below.

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• Account Data Load