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How a Business Component Field Identifies the Type of Data

The Type property of a business component field identifies the type of data that Siebel CRM gets from and sends to the Siebel database. Siebel CRM does not map these data types to the physical data types that it defines for the database. The data type of the field is typically more specific than the data type of the underlying column. For example, the DTYPE_NUMBER (decimal) and DTYPE_INTEGER field data types each reference the Number physical data type in the column. For more information, see Type Property of a Business Component Field.

Just as the data type of the underlying table column restricts the set of field data types that work correctly, the data type of a business component field restricts the set of format options that Siebel CRM can use in the control or list column that reference the field.

It is recommended that you do not map a field to a table column that is not the same type as the field. For example, do not map a DTYPE_NUMBER business component field to a Varchar table column.

Siebel CRM gets most default values for formats from the Microsoft Windows Control Panel. Overriding the default format in the Siebel repository but might cause confusion. For example, overriding a number format to display more or fewer decimal places is useful, but overriding a date format to DD/MM/YY is confusing to a user who set the date format to MM/DD/YY in the Control Panel. For more information, see How Siebel CRM Handles Certain Date Formats.

The Type property of a multi-value field is empty because Siebel CRM defines the data type of the field in the child business component that enters data in the multi-value field. For more information, see About the Multi-Value Field.