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Is it possible to get the Standard Field "Name" increased form 80 characters lenght to a greater length by Salesforce Support via a case?

I know, it's not possible changing this as an Admin. But I never tried to open a case and ask Salesforce for that. I ask because opening and babysitting a case is not a quick journey, and I'm sure that someone has already asked the support.

I know also that there is an idea for this. But it has aged for years already and this is no help now.

Reason is: this field is very special and plays a major role for lookup relationships and search. 80 characters is way too short. Before we start to go with other quirks, a want to make sure, that there is really NO way to get it adjusted, even not with super-powers....

Uwe Heim
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  • I have never had success trying to do this but I will be very interested to know if you have a different result – Scott Morrison Jun 17 '16 at 13:12
  • @ScottMorrison so you've tried already and they refused or could not do it, right? That's what I've expected... post it as answer and I'll accept it. – Uwe Heim Jun 17 '16 at 13:19
  • Yes but having said that, I have had cases where support adamantly refused to do something for a colleague, specifically increase the package namespace limit on an org, and everything I read about people having tried showed that it was not possible, but after enough persistence and strong customer use cases they were able to do it. So I can't say for certain whether it is a technical impossibility or not, it certainly doesn't seem like it should be difficult to at least increase it to 255 characters. – Scott Morrison Jun 17 '16 at 13:50
  • Looking at the data types for the salesforce standard objects and custom objects, and its interesting to see the differences, particularly the Name data type being used in some cases as a text field, in others a combination of other fields, and in some objects, its text(80). – battery.cord Jun 17 '16 at 14:13
  • The Name field is very very very special - unfortunately, and the way it is implemented feels not perfect. Also the length in case of standard object is sometimes greater than 80, e.g. for Opportunity (120). So Salesforce has already realized, that 80 is too short to fit all possible use-cases. Just we can't change it, but painfully need it. – Uwe Heim Jun 17 '16 at 15:02
  • @ScottMorrison you are right! So let's keep this open for a while and fish for the most persistence pals here and see if someone got it increased. It would be a such a relief! – Uwe Heim Jun 17 '16 at 15:06

2 Answers2

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No - it is not possible to increase the Name field from 80 chars. I raised a case with Salesforce Support regarding this, as I was curious. The response is below:

Currently, this is not yet possible as it is a limitation of the coding. But our Research and Development Team is welcome to future changes and additional capabilities to our Standard Features.

The most possible thing that we can do as of this moment is to vote on this in the community board. I strongly suggest that you and users from your Organization vote on this idea. Here's a link where you can vote and promote this functionality already requested by other users as well:

Increase Name field length from 80 to 255 https://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?id=08730000000kowTAAQ

Having said that, we'll now temporarily close your case for now to avoid sending you additional requests for updates. However, please be assured that you can re-open the case anytime if you still require assistance. You may also create a new case and we'll be happy to assist you.

Andy Hitchings
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There is nothing really special about a name. That is why I use auto-naming whenever I can.

If you want to have a special name, create a new field called "My Special Name". You can have any length you want, up to 255 characters. If you want to make this field an index key, aka searchable via universal search, make it an external id. Then it is automatically indexed and searchable. Make it a required field if you want, and you can require that it be unique. If you don't want to use up one of external Ids's, you can make a service request to salesforce.com that a custom field on an object be indexed.

Hide the auto name field whenever you can. Users cannot edit it, so why show it to them

David Claiborne
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