Impacts on DD Item Changes

rev

Active Member
Hi All -

Environment: JD Edwards App Release 8.10 / Tools Release 8.97 series

Few custom applications created 2 years before need a Data Dictionary Change. We are targeting the following changes for 2 DD Items.

1. DD Item AAAA: Increase size of a string from 4 to 5
2. DD Item BBBB: Convert string to numeric and increase size from 4 to 5.

There are Tables, BSFN, Applications & Reports built on top of them. All custom objects.

Would like to know the impact, challenges, particularly the plan to identify every single object impacted by these DD Items.
Please share your experience. It will be of great help to me. Thank you.
 
rev,

Don't change data dictionary items!!

If you do, you will (probably) have to rebuild all objects (tables, BSFNs, UBEs etc.) that use them (most likely) from scratch (not change, copy or clone etc.). Then there is the possibility you may have to rebuild (possibly from scratch) any objects that use the objects that use the changed DD items (especially tables and data structures), then objects that use these ... and so on ... (ever seen a domino tumble?). Everything will need to be checked.
 
I agree with Peter, but are these DD items you need to change, new themselves?

Don't go changing any base JDE DD items no, but if you have your own custom DDs then you can get away with it.

Before you do anything......

How many DD libraries do you have?

Hopefully DV has it's own DD library. Or at least PD does?

This way you can try and test your changes in an environment separate to PD (you will have to revisit all the objects as Peter says)

You will probably have to go deleting all your local DDDICT DDTEXT type files etc, to ensure your FAT client is operating on the new DD specs

What you're trying to do isn't easy but doable with care.

Make a list of all the objects it effects and then revisit each one in turn

But do NOT do this if it is a base JDE DD item
 
Not actually done this where a large number of objects were affected, other than QTYINV and CURRENCY decimals, that I recall, but this would be how I would start:
1. Make sure prod has a separate DD from dev first, so you can test.
2. Rebuild the xref tables (in DV) to make sure it has your custom DD items and objects.
3. Using the xref, find everywhere that your DD items have been used.
4. Make a full back up of the dev environment for rollback.
5. Make the changes to your custom DD items. Delete the fat client local DD and global table spec files etc..
6. Rename or copy affected custom tables sideways for now.
7. Update every one of your affected custom objects, start with files and data structures. Open them, update as required for any references to changed DD, or force a change to enable save. Exit. generate header/table/functions.
8. Full dev package build, and refresh DD (delete DDDICT, truncate serialized objects).
9. Write some custom SQL to copy from the backups of custom tables back into the newly generated ones, fixing the data for the changes you made.
10. Test until completely confident it all works, or you decide to rollback, as there's a great many places it can go wrong.
 
Thanks gurus for your valuable suggestion and time, Just want to callout few more things to be more specific about our scenario.
1) All DD changes are to be made on new DD items not on Base JDE DD items.
2) List of all impacted objects is around 70 (4 DD items are to be modified) or a little more (Not finalized).
3) DD changes we foresee is DD length and data type numeric to string.
4) PD has a separate DD library and DD change in DEV will not have a immediate impact on PROD.
5) We did figure out few risks and sure we have a mountain to climb.

Queries :
1) Coming back again to identifying object impacted by these DD Item changes, XREF does give the list of objects where specific DD item is being used, but it will not show the UBE or Application or NER which use that DD as Report Variables or ER variables. Is there a way we can figure out this, than doing a manual check on complete ER.
2) What kind of impact may DD item changes leave on UBE’s, Applications , NER at ER level .
3) What kind of changes can we expect on C BSFN side ( We found 1 C BSFN only, but I am not a proficient C programmer ).
4) Any additional information on deletion of local DDDICT, DDTEXT type files etc, how it come into significance, will be greatly appreciated.
5) Please share any thoughts relevant to DD change impact, challenges , risks , It would be of great help.
 
Rev,

Firstly, please consider adding new custom DD items instead of changing existing custom DD items. This may actually save you some work and make the "mountain" a little lower.

Secondly, as you say:

XREF does give the list of objects where specific DD item is being used, but it will not show the UBE or Application or NER which use that DD as Report Variables or ER variables. Is there a way we can figure out this, than doing a manual check on complete ER.

I remember a thread or two that, in part, discussed how to find where objects are used that the Xref misses. I think Brian Oster (user BOster) had a few ideas on this. Search JDEList for "cross reference", "cross ref", and/or "Xref".
 
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