Publish, Retire, Restore, or Delete a Custom Field

Publish, retire, restore, or permanently delete QCMM Custom Fields while preserving historical subscription snapshots and avoiding unsafe reuse.

Published and Retired Are Different States

An active field can be Published or Unpublished. Only active, published fields can be newly assigned to a Plan. Retiring a field changes its lifecycle state and removes it from normal new assignment use without erasing historical subscription data.

Retire When the Field Is No Longer Offered

Use Retire when you want to stop using a definition for future Plan design but still need its history. A retired field can later be restored to the active state.

Deletion Requires Retirement First

QCMM refuses permanent deletion unless the definition is already retired. Deleting a retired field removes the live reusable definition, its current Plan assignments, and its option rows. QCMM intentionally preserves historical subscription value snapshots.

Historical Keys Stay Protected

Historical subscription data continues to reserve the Field ID. This prevents a newly created field from reusing the same machine key and changing the meaning of old records.

Recommended Lifecycle

  1. Unpublish if the field only needs to disappear temporarily from current use.
  2. Retire when the field is no longer part of the active catalog.
  3. Restore if the same definition should return.
  4. Delete only after reviewing the displayed Plan/subscription impact and confirming the live definition is no longer needed.

Community Discussion

Want to compare QCMM workflows or share practical tips? Visit the QC Memberships & Meetings Community. For private support, bug reports, account-specific entitlement or billing problems, or feature requests, use the QuantaCade support system.