Best practice to delete Custom Fields and Lookup Tables

[Nach]

Hello,

Due to some organization changes within the company we have the need to
include new custom fields and lookup tables and get rid of the old ones. Is
it as easy as just deleting them from the Server Settings page in PWA or does
it have any side effects attached to it? Right now we have just decided to
not delete the old fields, just clear out the lookup table and enter the new
values into it and rename the existing CF to what we want. So that the UIDs
in the database remains the same with just a name change.
1. How does it affect old closed/archived projects ?
2. Let's say I delete one field and in future if I have to create a CF with
the same name as the deleted CF, then will I be able to do it without issues
or will it throw an error that this name already exists ? (I remember seeing
this issue in this forum)

Please advice.

Thanks
Nach

 

[Ben Howard]

Hi Nach,
I'm not sure that there is any published best practice out there.
In 1. below the old projects will point to the new values referenced by the
old GUIDs - this may or may not be what you want.
in 2. below, I don't recall the issue you've seen.

Ultimately, you need to decide if you want to report on the old
structure/codes. If so, you need to keep them but make them non mandatory.
If you don't require to report on them, I'd just go for option 1 below.