How to move custom fields from indexed to non-indexed?

[Viktor]

Question:

How to move custom fields from indexed to non-indexed, or vice versa?

[Viktor · Accepted solution]

Answer:

Currently it is not possible to simply switch an indexed field to non-indexed, or vice versa.

If you'd like to do this, you need to:

- Create a Data Source Export on the data source in question, extracting all object IDs and the relevant custom field.

- Remove the Custom Field, and re-create it with the desired indexing options with the same name

- Use API update calls to re-populate the newly created, similarly named custom fields

Supporting resources:

https://www.zuora.com/developer/api-reference/ (Section: ACTIONS > Update)

http://knowledgecenter.zuora.com/DC_Developers/SOAP_API/E_SOAP_API_Calls/update_call

[Viktor · Accepted solution]

Our Services team provided the following process that can be used where the indexed property needs to be changed as fast as possible on a live Production tenant where traffic is ongoing.

The suggested procedure for changing a field from non-indexed to indexed with virtually no disruption risk:

1. create a yourcustomfield_NEW__c (indexed) field
2. export the values from the current yourcustomfield__c (unindexed) field and populate the yourcustomfield_NEW__c (indexed) field with the same values, using Zuora Connect tools
3. rename the yourcustomfield__c (unindexed) field to yourcustomfield_OLD__c
(between step 3 and 4 is where you have a couple seconds of possible disruption)
4. rename the yourcustomfield_NEW__c (indexed) field to yourcustomfield__c

(optional) 5. compare yourcustomfield_OLD__c and yourcustomfield__c and fix manually any discrepancy that might have occurred during the loading process.