Picklist and multi-picklist field names have been limited to 17 characters

Prior to this release, the platform allowed field names for picklist and multi-picklist to be 61 characters.

We had received reports of inconsistent errors when creating fields with long names for these types of fields.

Given the way the platform converts these fields into data structures for both storing the value and also for storing the available options (vocabularies), and constraints of the underlying database, the system was truncating the field names to the first 17 characters. If you attempted to create a picklist or multi-picklist field where the first 17 characters were not unique, a generic error was returned.

To better reflect this constraint, we have enforced the maximum field length for all new picklist and multi-picklist fields to be 17 characters when creating fields in the web app Settings > Objects and Fields UIs.

Impact to existing picklist and multi-picklist fields

An information icon is shown in the field list, or the field editor, if an existing custom picklist or multi-picklist field has a name longer than 17 characters.

Fields with names longer than this will continue to work as expected. You can modify other properties of these fields, as long as you do not change the name. If you attempt to change the name of the field you will be forced to comply with the new length constraint. 

Constraint not enforced via API

This new constraint is currently only enforced in the web app Settings UI, changes via the API are not impacted, and will still return errors if the original issue is encountered.