Hi mrGumbyman,

You can go ahead and delete the field even if it has associated values. This is just a warning screen. Webapps are quite robust and will not break if you do this. However if you delete a field or add a new one you will need to redo your layouts.

Hi there,

If you want to change the field type in a web app, you will have to delete the field and redo it. Sad I know.

If you have data already in the web app I suggest you download it all to spreadsheet.

Then delete the field, add it again as the correct type, and put the field in the correct place in the fields list. You will get a warning saying that the field you want to delete contains data, but you can go ahead and delete it. Create the new field and put it in the correct place in the fields list. Make it text string type. I suggest never using field type of number in a web app, as it is too literal, just an integer, and causes problems as you have found.

Then go to upload web app items.

Then download the upload template spreadsheet for the web app.

Check that the spreadsheet you downloaded is in the correct field order by putting an extra line at the top under the first line of field names, and then go to the upload template spreadsheet, copy the first line of field names in and paste into the new line you just created in the web app data spreadsheet. Go along and check that all the fields match, so that your upload will work.

Save your upload spreadsheet as csv.

Don't forget that when you upload web app items from a spreadsheet, they come in automatically as inactive, unless you have the correct data in the Release Date field. It must be as follows: 02-Jun-2012 (for example) and in TEXT format, not date format, so you have to format all the cells in that column as text, and then put the date in. Expiry data also needs to be set the same way, otherwise the downloaded data defaults to 1/1/1999 and so all the webapp items upload as already expired. I usually set the expiry date to 01-Jan-2099 TEXT format again.

If you reupload the webapp items they will overwrite the webapp items there and update the data into the new field.

You will then have to delete the old field from the webapp layouts and add the new field. I suggest going to HTML view in your layout customisation page, copying the HTML and pasting into Notepad.

Then reset the layout to default, and add the new field to the layout. Go into HTML view and get the code for that new field and replace the old field in the Notepad copy you took.

Then copy the entire Notepad dump, and paste it back into the HTML view of the layout. That way you don't have to to it all by hand again.

I have done about 10 webapps now, and every single one required field adjustments and reupload of data, due to customers changing their minds. I always charge them for that, because as you can see, it is quite bit of work to do.

Good luck.