Managing the sizes of approver fields - Documentation for AR System 22.1
Sebastian Wright
Published Apr 07, 2026
The Approval Server manages the sizes of approver fields as well as a utility that is used for this purpose.
By default, approver names are limited to 255 characters and the list of members in an approval server role is limited to 512 characters. The Approval Server checks the lengths of the fields listed in the following table at startup, and enforces this length as the maximum limit.
Approver fields checked for maximum length at startup
Field ID | Field name | Form name |
|---|---|---|
12401 | Member List | |
13203 | Original Approvers |
|
13205 | Next Approvers |
|
13207 | Approvers |
|
14511 | GNA Approvers |
|
14512 | PGNA Approvers |
|
You can increase the length of these fields to the maximum limit permitted by the database (VARCHAR limit) by manually executing a approval server utility.
VARCHAR limits for special fields on supported databases
Database | VARCHAR limit |
|---|---|
Microsoft SQL Server | 8000 Note: Even though the VARCHAR limit on SQL Server is 8000 characters, the Approval Change Schema utility sets the field length to 4000 characters to support Unicode. |
Oracle | 4000 |
To use longer approver names with previews, make the following changes:
- For regular previews, increase the length of the Approvers and Original Approvers fields on AP:PreviewSignatures.
- For real-time previews, increase the length of the Approvers field on AP:PreviewInfo.
Administrators can run the Approval Change Schema (chgschema) utility to set the length of approver fields on certain forms to the maximum limit allowed by the database. Approver fields checked for maximum length at startup lists the forms and their approver fields that are affected.
The syntax for chgschema is as follows:
chgschema -x Server -u User
[-p Password] [-t TCP Port]
[-r RPC Port] [-a Authentication String]The following table describes the parameters that administrators need to supply when running the chgschema utility:
Parameters for the chgschema utility
Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
-x | (Required) Name or IP address of the AR System server to log into (or localhost, if applicable). |
-u | (Required) Specify the AR System user name. This user must belong to an administrator group, otherwise the utility can not be run successfully, and the following error is displayed at the command prompt and written to approval-utils.log: |
-p | (Optional) Specify the password for the aforementioned user. Omit this parameter if the user account does not have a password. |
-t | (Optional) TCP port number of the server being logged into. This parameter is required if the AR System server is configured to listen on a particular TCP port. |
-r | (Optional) RPC port number of the server being logged into. This parameter is required if the AR System server is configured to listen on a particular RPC port. |
-a | (Optional) Specify the authentication string. |
The chgschema utility increases the lengths of the approver fields provided that the current lengths are not already set to the maximum VARCHAR limit, or to unrestricted or 0. In case of the Member List field, if the maximum length supported by the database is less than 512 characters, the current field length is not modified. This ensures that the corresponding data remains intact.
After running the utility, restart the approval server for the changes to take effect.
