Default Database Fields Question

taylor

When I create a Database structure, Decisions creates for me 3 fields: 

• ID
• CustomShortDescription
• CustomLongDescription

In the specific application that I'm building, I needed a Database Structure to hold Software Applications names. I wanted each record to have an Application Code and an Application Name. (For example: ApplicationCode = "DE" and ApplicationName = "Decisions").  

I thought it would be OK to use the CustomShortDescription and the CustomLongDescription to keep that data, as opposed to creating my own fields in the Database Structure. 

I found that the CustomShortDescription and CustomLongDescription fields can be accessed when building the data to Create a new record, but the Fetch Entity step cannot be configured to select any of those 2 fields as part of the Fetch Criteria.  

Is that by design?   If so, what are these two fields used for?

Kathryn_Decisions

It's recommended to use a dedicated field for these values, rather than the CustomShortDescription and CustomLongDescription fields. These fields come by default with any entity objects, and do not persist in the database as other data fields.

Custom data fields should be created for the sets of data you're looking to save.