Creating/Amending Field with Dependencies? - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Question

What is the easiest way to change a field with a whole plethora of dependencies?

In the 'Company' section when you add a new call, there a field called 'Summary' I want to either amend or replace this with a field that has a drop down menu, but when I looked in to it, that field has some 28 dependencies so if I create a new field, how do I ensure I have got this bit right?

Many thanks

Nick

Answer 1

Not sure there is a quick way to do this - especially when you consider that changes would have to be replicated in any other environment you have deployed to, I would suggest:

1. Make a new field.
2. Mark the old field as redundant, eg add (REDUNDANT) in front of the name.
3. Work your way through moving dependencies from the old field to the new. When the old field has no dependencies you know your work is complete.
4. When you import to any other environment the old field will still exist but will be totally unused.
5. If the original field was populated perform a data migration to populate the new field.