2075888 - Field contains too many characters, comments length cannot contain more than 4000 characters

Symptom

This KB article describes how to resolve the following character count error in PMv12:

Error - Required Fields are not filled or value is not valid.
Section: Review Context/Summary: field contains too many characters, comments length cannot be more than 4000 characters.

Users are unable to save comments in PMv12 forms. When in MS Word, the attached feedback counts to less than 4000 characters including spaces; however in SuccessFactors, when copying and pasting the feedback into the comments, the user gets the attached error message, indicating it is over 4,000 characters:

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management
PM v11 or PM v12

Cause

There are more than 4000 characters in a comment field.

Resolution

Because the SuccessFactors application is web-based, when cutting and pasting from a formatted Word document into a browser text editor, it's pasted as HTML.
Although only text appears, in reality there are various hidden html tags that were also pasted in.
Additionally some language characters are double-byte.
The 4000 characters count is a raw count which includes html tags used for formatting, as well as double-byte characters, so the real string length may be significantly shorter than 4000 characters.
To resolve, if user must cut and paste from a Word doc, the best practice is to cut and paste to any text-only editor first. This will strip out any embedded tags save only the text.
Then copy and paste from the text editor into the PM form comment box. This ensures only text is entered and nothing else.
If text formatting is required, only use what is available in the comment editor to make the proper formatting.
For PM v12 Acceleration forms refer to KB article 2372468 - How to Check if the Performance Form has 4000 Character Limit

In addition to these natural field limits, it is also possible to configure certain goal fields with a maxlength attribute, min-value and max-value. This can reduce how much text is entered into the field. Also, a validation can be added on forms for required fields that checks for how much text is in the field when moving from 1 step to the next, preventing the form from moving if it exceeds the desired length.

Keywords

SF, Success Factors, PM , KBA , sf error messages pm , LOD-SF-PM-ADM , Admin Center, RBP, Permissions and Settings , Problem

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