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Caryl_Mostacho
Caryl_Mostacho
Level 4
July 15, 2014
Question

Change SFDC Field Type

  • July 15, 2014
  • 3 replies
  • 3503 views
Hi,

 We have a checkbox field that we would now like to change to a picklist in Salesforce. How will this sync in Marketo?


1. Will Marketo see that the field type has changed? 
2.  If this field is on a form or landing page will it affect it in anyway?


Caryl
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3 replies

Edward_Masson
Edward_Masson
Level 10
July 15, 2014
If the field is being used currently on a form, the Marketo admin team will get an email about a change made in SFDC of a field that Marketo uses.

Josh_Hill13
Josh_Hill13
Level 10
July 15, 2014
You may also need to adjust any workflows that use this field. I would be a bit reluctant to do this, but if Edward says it works, then it probably does!

Another option is to create a new picklist field, let it sync, then update the forms and workflows. Then run a data flow to transfer any data from the old field to the new picklist values.
Bill_Carney2
Bill_Carney2
Level 2
August 19, 2014
Edward's comment isn't very help ful as it provides no instructions on what to do.

I had the opposite issue. A field was changed from a text to a checkbox in Salesforce and has created a form error which does not sync people that we need to sync...

This is the error I got.
Sync Lead to SFDC caught exception 
exceptionMessage: 
_createSObjects failed - 'no' is not valid for type xsd:boolean, should be '0', '1', 'true' or 'false'

Marketo says
You can continue to push data from this field without changing the field type by making sure that the data Marketo adds to this field will be compatible with the boolean field in Salesforce. This means using '0' and '1', or 'true' and 'false' for that field instead of 'yes' or 'no'. That way, the data will be compatible with both field types so it will still sync. You will also need to convert existing data in that field in Marketo to be compatible with the boolean field. You can accomplish that with smart campaigns using a "Change Data Value" flow step. 

So I did this and it doesn't work....I think you'll need to change the field type after the above process.
 
Marketo again....If you choose to change the field type in Marketo, the field must be removed from use in Marketo (it cannot be in any smart lists, campaigns, etc) and then you will be able to change it's type. Keep in mind that if you change to a new field type and there is data in the field that is incompatible with the new type it will remove the existing value in that field. 

Im nervous about losing the data and Marketo support hasn't been very helpful (you can imagine this is a hot issue in the company).

I might just go for it but still doing research and came accross you comment ...haven't found much more on this.  Marketos online docs dont even tell you how to not lose the data.  Ill try to post if it works for me. 
 
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