Change datatype from Extra long text to Text

RE: Change datatype from Extra long text to Text

sarathkumar13 — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:55:58 GMT

Update on this issue

Seems this issue goes away once we update the database from text to varchar and go to map record fields and click on finish. Shubham Aware Harsha Sharma
Thanks for your inputs

RE: Change datatype from Extra long text to Text

Harsha Sharma — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 11:24:17 GMT

You might already know this but just in case mentioning here, we can check the dependents using this icon link in record to get a list of all objects where this field is in use. Keep it handy to update the objects with new field later on, so that regression issues/field not found error can be avoided.

RE: Change datatype from Extra long text to Text

sarathkumar13 — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 10:11:17 GMT

Thanks Shubham for your reply. Yeah it is frustrating when such scenario happens. Atleast we should have a dropdown option to update the datatype from extra long text to text. Updating all the dependencies will be a tedious process which has to be tested again properly.

RE: Change datatype from Extra long text to Text

Shubham Aware — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 09:58:06 GMT

From version 25.1 added the 3 Extra Long Text field limit. I know it's very frustrating when platform updates break existing functionality that was working fine before.

[quote userid="72415" url="~/discussions/f/data/39541/change-datatype-from-extra-long-text-to-text"]And we are unable to change datatype from extra long to text from record side. I changed the column from text to varchar in db side but still getting this error.[/quote]

When you change a column from TEXT to VARCHAR in the database, record doesn't automatically update the field type due to caching.
Remove the 4th Extra Long Text field from your Record Type, save, then re-add the same field. It will now correctly show as "Text" type instead of "Extra Long Text" since record will read the updated VARCHAR type from the database. This remove-and-re-add approach is the standard solution for this issue.

Note : When you delete and re-add a field, Appian does NOT automatically update references - you'll need to manually remap the field in all dependent objects. Consider documenting all dependencies first, then update each one after re-adding the field.