In Systems Tables, there is often a "default" category associated with a table. In general, I understand that the default should never be deleted. My questions are:
- As long as there are other options, is there any negative consequence to making the default category inactive? We try to keep drop-down choices streamlined and relevant. Sometimes, this one extra line keeps the last option on the list from displaying (without scrolling).
- What's the difference between default IDs that =1 and IDs that = -1? Is there a difference?
Thanks for sharing your wisdom!
Susan,
I will be the first to say that I am NOT the expert on this, but this is how I have sort of tried to operate. Any negative numbers, I leave alone. Potentially the description column for those could be changed, but generally safest just to leave those alone. Dropdowns in Tessitura 99% of the time pull in alphabetical order. The exception are the negative numbers, those are always at the very top initially, and thus, I leave them alone. For positive 1s, those choices are usually populated in dropdowns that are 100% alphabetical, in which case, the 1 can be safely changed/inactivated.
That said, any time I am looking to update a default of any table, I will first check the Tessitura documentation on that table; if it should not be changed it usually says so right there in the documentation, or else in the System Table info box at the bottom in Tessitura. Also, you can always try it out in TEST first.
Again, this is just from my experience. I hope this helps!
John
Hi Susan,
We've inactivated some defaults with no issue, but I can't be sure that's okay for all tables. However I did know the answer about the negative index values: that's specifically Tessitura's way of saying "don't touch".
Generally speaking I don't believe there would be a problem with deleting a default value outright, with the exception of those that are documented to be required in the table help or docs. My reason for keeping them around as inactive is to serve as an aid when looking at the choices in a dropdown — since the default value will say the name of the table, it can help you or someone else know which system table to go to if you wanted to make changes to the dropdown.