Calculation v Lookup

[Cateleb]

HI, I have an existing field which is a lookup upon creation and used in relationships .. however the field that it looksup can change and I've now decided (after 6 years !) that I want it to reflect the value of the lookup field as it is (dynamically).  what are the consequences of changing the field from a number field to a calculation field .. apart from some possible slowness loading layouts

regards

Cate

 

[comment]

More details would be useful, especially how this field is being used in relationships. An unstored calculation field cannot be used as the matchfield on the "child" side of a relationship - more precisely, the side from which the relationship retrieves the related record/s. In some cases there are workarounds that can be employed to overcome this limitation.

[Cateleb]

Hi Comment,   the field is always the parent side of the relationships for the purpose of this question

 

the problem has arisen thus

 

Case::BranchID is initially assigned based on the branch ID of the get(accountname) of the person creating the record (case)

the Invoice::BranchID  is a numerical field lookup from the case:branchID upon it's [invoice]  creation

BUT, we've recently embarked on the paperless office thingy whereby other branches can create cases and invoices for the other branches.  So if the case::branchID changes after the invoice creation then the lookup field invoice::BranchID remains as it was created .. which is a prob as the invoice needs to be attributed to the newly assigned  branch

so I was thinking of just changing the invoice:branchID from a numeric [lookup] field to a calc field ... there a number of child relationships attached to the invoice::branchID field and I was just wondering whether there is anything that the change in parent field type might affect

 

I've played around with a backup copy and couldn't see any obvious probs, but thought it best to throw it out there given I'm only the in-house, part time programmer for our small family company

  regards

Cate