What happens when you change column type?
When you change a column from one type to another, behind the scenes it actually deletes the column and creates a new column with the new type, and then we do our best to convert the existing values to the new type. We do this to support easy undo functions to recover the previous data without significant changes.
You can easily convert a Text column into Dropdowns, Tags, and even Dates (if text is formatted correctly). However, when converting between types that have incompatible values -- for example: a person-type column to a file attachment type -- a confirmation warning is shown that incompatible values may be lost.
If you aren't sure about the compatibility of type conversion, we recommend making a copy of the column first so you can compare the contents.
Effects on Bots, Forms, Views
When changing the type of the column or deleting a column, we do our best to update any corresponding bots, forms, filters, grouping, and view layouts to still work, but this isn’t always possible. We recommend double-checking bots, forms, views, and linked columns from other tables after any major column type changes:
| Bots |
In many cases, the safest thing for us to do is to simply remove the column from any configuration settings. This means any triggers or conditions or email recipients that were configured using the changed or deleted column may be disabled and need to be re-configured. You will see a red warning sign in the Bots toolbar button if a bot has been affected, and you can generally fix the issue by editing the bot, fixing the configuration, and re-saving. |
| Forms |
We mark questions hidden for columns with type changes, so that users don’t see a question that no longer makes sense. If a column is deleted, that question will be removed for all forms on the table. We will show an orange warning sign in the Forms toolbar button if a form has been affected, to alert you to revisit the form and make sure that it still looks and works as intended. You can remove the warning by editing the form and saving it again. |
| Views |
Any filters, grouping, or sorting that was configured using the changed or deleted column may be removed and you will need to reconfigure and save updated settings for the view. We do not show a warning for affected views at this time.
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