Pipeline errors when acting on tables with large qty of Formula and Summary Fields

Question

QB technical support has indicated that I am experiencing problems creating pipelines that involve one of my tables because I have too many formula lookup and summary fields in the table. I cannot save a pipeline when this table is involved anymore. I experience an internal error when building any step in a new pipeline or when updating an existing pipeline that includes this table. A pipeline for any other table is created or updated without a problem. Does anyone know if there is a tool that identifies fields that are causing this problem beyond just the built in "Usage" functionality. I have 854 fields in the table of which 295 are formula fields and 254 are Relationship fields. The app with this table has been in production since 2018. Is my only recourse to go thru each of the 549 fields to determine if they are needed. My guess is that most of the 549 fields are being used in some capacity. A tool to speed up this analysis would be great.

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George Bramhall
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chayceduncan · Answer

You can use the performance analyzer and run it alongside a report to start whittling down your list of worst offenders.&nbsp;

You can find documentation here

My suggestion would be to run a report with a large enough number of records that you should see the run time for formulas be significant, and in the report include a handful of formula fields or other entries that you want to investigate and take a look at the performance results. Do this starting with what you might think are the worst offenders such as formula queries that reference large data sets, complex summary fields, lookup fields from large data sets, formulas with complex calls that reference or use multiple data points from different data source etc etc. As you find bad actors that you can fix, you can optimize how you're doing formulas, refactor your queries or find alternatives for how to achieve whatever it is.&nbsp;------------------------------Chayce Duncan------------------------------

gretchenjorgens · Answer

George,
I have a table with more fields, formula fields, and relationship fields than you describe, and just created a new pipeline for that table the day before yesterday.

Based on that, it seems unlikely the number of fields is causing your inability to save. If there was such a limit, support should be able to tell you how many fields of each type are allowed (and that reason should be displayed in the error message vs. a random internal error).

How many pipelines do you have for this table?

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Pipeline errors when acting on tables with large qty of Formula and Summary Fields

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