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).

1. Yes, ChatGPT and I did the numbers, it’s around 650 billions ↩︎