Sometimes, good news sneaks into our world undetected. Big int as a separate data type has been available in Dataverse for about two years now.
A big int column can be defined in UI but is accessible via API only, i.e., it cannot be used in forms, views, or formula fields.
A lazy and probably not very reliable way to allow updates in UI is to create a text field then add an automated low-code plug-in on Create and Update:
Patch(
'Table',
ThisRecord,
{
'BigIntColumn': Value('BigIntTextColumn')
}
)
Use cases:
- Rollups where the int value may overflow. For example, total volume of file attachments across large number of records.
- Timestamps or the total number of postal stamps printed in the world since 18401 – whichever you prefer.
- Population of the Northern Hemisphere.
- My weight in µg (micrograms).
- External record identifiers (real case).
- Yes, ChatGPT and I did the numbers, it’s around 650 billions ↩︎