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TMaier
TMaier
Helper ⭐️
December 5, 2023
New Idea

User-created Timeline Fields are "System" Type - Cannot Be Deleted

Related products:CS Data Management & Integrations
  • December 5, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 63 views

I was working on cleaning up in our instance yesterday and found, to my surprise, that Timeline fields created by the admin are saved to the Activity Timeline MDA as System fields. This means that they cannot be deleted which is a bit of an issue.

 

It’s reasonable to assume that as an instance ages and workflows evolve, old workflows will leave behind obsolete fields in relevant objects. Activity Timeline is one of the core objects in Gainsight, being involved in a variety of day-to-day work, and is very likely to accumulate this kind of tech debt over time. Being unable to delete ANY field created on it hinders our ability to keep a tidy instance and implies that the MDA will only continue to grow as additional fields are added.

 

I’d appreciate it if you would consider finding a way to ensure that any non-standard fields created on Activity Timeline (or really ANY MDA) are designated as Custom so that they can be managed properly over time.

    4 replies

    darkknight
    darkknight
    Expert ⭐️
    December 5, 2023

    @TMaier did you try deleting them through the Timeline Activity configuration panel? Should be able to from there, so long as any dependencies (dropdown lists) have been removed.

    I did run into a little trouble with it recently that required Gainsight support to clear some kind of backend cache.
     

     

    Jeff Kirkpatrick
      TMaier
      TMaierAuthor
      Helper ⭐️
      December 5, 2023

      I’ll check it out, that might be a viable workaround. It does still leave me with one issue: since all fields are System in the MDA, I don’t have any way to tell for sure which ones were added by us and which ones were part of the OOTB config.

      darkknight
      darkknight
      Expert ⭐️
      December 5, 2023

      @TMaier I agree. Call to Action fields are created through the Call to Action page (not through Data Management) and they are “CUSTOM” fields.  Timeline should work the same (as should anywhere in the system.) If it’s a custom field it should be a CUSTOM field.

      Jeff Kirkpatrick
      TMaier
      TMaierAuthor
      Helper ⭐️
      December 6, 2023

      For anyone following this or finding it in the future (hello world!) with the same issue: the workaround described above is an effective way to delete fields from the Activity Timeline MDA.

       

      My point about the field type still stands and I’d appreciate your vote here if you agree.

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