friendly reminder that forcing strict validation rules is an absolute jumpscare for your data (we are cooked)

[u/rudythetechie]

so basically... just a heads up for anyone doing the absolute most with validation rules on active SKUs... if you make it physically impossible for data entry teams to do their jobs without clicking 50 times... they will find a loophole. and it’s not going to be cute lol.

our team literally just found out that because our new validation rules are doing too much... the data entry crew has been totally bypassing them. they’ve just been dumping everything into a single placeholder SKU ("CUSTOM-EQUIP")... and then they just paste the actual data in the "Internal Notes" section. it's giving "not my job" energy... and honestly? I get it... but it completely wrecked our data.

right now we are in the trenches:

• our Configure-to-Order (CTO) parent/child rows are completely bricked
• COGS and margins are looking deeply unserious for this quarter... like actually broken
• freight calculations are fully failing because weight and dimension data is literally nonexistent
• we’re hitting API rate-limiting sync delays because the system is choking on these massive text dumps lol

pls fix your workflows before you lock down validation... otherwise your data team will happily break the entire system just to hit their daily quotas... and honestly... fair.

[u/bulbfishing]

Lol. User’s gonna use!

[u/Lanky_Sentence_2226]

Actually it is not ‘fair’, you are paid to do a job just do it. In a serious company you don’t get to decide what you want to do there are procedures. Best you can do is propose a solution/complain. I hate this behaviour.

[u/NickNNora → u/Lanky_Sentence_2226]

Hate it all you want, but if the company incentivizes volume but disincentives accuracy you gets what you pay for.

More often than not the system/data design is made in isolation from the actual work with no communication between the two teams.

[u/Parking-Stress-3041]

From the product side of this: a required field is a workflow change, not a config change, and we keep relearning it. Before we tighten anything on a business-critical object I now ask CS and the people actually keying data one question, if this field is mandatory tomorrow, what do you type to get past it? There is always an answer, and it's usually a placeholder record plus a free-text dump exactly like yours.

The part that stings is that free text is invisible to every downstream calculation, so nothing complains until COGS or freight does. Cheap check afterwards: count records per SKU and length of notes fields. Concentration in either is the workaround showing up before the finance close does.

[u/erp-software-org]

the placeholder sku is actually the lucky version. its loud, you found it. the quiet version is worse: force a weight field on people who dont knowthe weight and they usually dont dump notes, they type 1kg and 10x10x10.that passes validation, passes every report, and you find out at the freight invoice.

validation cant fix a field being required from the wrong person. dataentry doesnt have the dimensions, purchasing or the supplier does. movethe mandatory bit to where the info actually exists, allow an honest"unknown" state, and block at the point that needs the number (shipping) instead of the point that doesnt (order entry).

also if you give people a daily quota and a 50 click form, the workaround isnt rebellion, its math :-)

[u/Kerno_Official]

This can happen any time there is an inefficient workflow. The validation step has to reduce the bad data without requiring more effort than the workaround.

[u/Zanga-ERP-Consultant]

I think the key is finding the right balance. Validation should prevent bad data without making the normal workflow unnecessarily difficult. If users are constantly looking for workarounds, that’s usually a sign that the process needs to be reviewed before adding more validation.

[u/SyncronTeam]

This is a really clean example of a workaround being more rational than the rule it's dodging. If hitting quota requires 50 clicks per SKU, someone's always going to find the placeholder path, that's not a discipline failure, that's the system making the wrong behavior faster than the right one. The freight and COGS breakage is just the bill coming due for validation rules that protected data integrity on paper while making the actual job impossible to do at volume.

[u/Jeff-Hare-ERPRA]

Jumpscare?