Merge Descriptions

The Merge Descriptions feature automatically builds structured, consistent text descriptions for items by combining the Information Codes and their values that have been recorded in the Information Setup. Instead of writing item descriptions by hand, you define rules for how the app should assemble them — choosing which pieces of information to include, in what order, and with what separators — and the system generates and maintains the descriptions for you. The result is a reliable, company-wide standard for how items are described, without requiring any manual text entry.

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Feature Overview

When multiple Information Codes are assigned to an item — such as material, colour, size, or weight — those individual pieces of data can be concatenated into a single, human-readable description. Merge Descriptions makes this possible by letting you specify, per Information Code, whether it should participate in one or more description outputs and how its contribution should be formatted. The formatting rules are defined in Description Setup, a reusable library of merge patterns that controls which parts of an information entry are included (the Information Code description, the Information Value description, the Value, or a free-text Description), what separator characters go between them, and in which order the three elements are arranged.

There are three distinct description outputs that can be generated, each serving a different purpose:

The Long Item Description is a dedicated field on the Item Card that holds the full merged description assembled from all participating Information Codes. It is built automatically whenever specifications change and can optionally overwrite the standard item Description field or update the item's Search Description field, depending on settings in the Master Data Information Setup.

The Item Description is the standard Business Central Description field on the Item Card. When this merge output is enabled in the setup, the system can write the merged result directly into the item description, replacing or supplementing what was there before. This can also update Item Translations for each language where translated specifications exist.

The Report Description is a separate merged output used specifically by the Master Data on Documents feature. It is built at document generation time using the Information Codes marked to contribute to this output, and it flows onto the document rather than being stored permanently on the item card.

The Update Merge Descriptions action recalculates all three outputs across all items, or a selected range of items, ensuring everything stays in sync after bulk changes to Information Codes or values.

Typical Use Cases

As a product data manager, I want the item's Long Item Description field to be automatically assembled from its material, grade, and dimension specifications so that every item in our catalogue has a standardised, structured description without anyone needing to type it manually.
As a sales administrator, I want the standard item Description field to be automatically updated when new specifications are added or changed, so that order confirmations and picking lists always reflect the current product name without manual corrections.
As a master data administrator, I want to configure the separator characters and element ordering per Information Code in Description Setup, so that the assembled descriptions follow our internal naming conventions precisely — for example, "Stainless Steel: Grade 316L, 50mm" rather than a different arrangement.
As an export sales coordinator, I want the Long Item Description to be updated in each customer's language when language-specific Information Values are maintained, so that translated descriptions on Item Translations are always consistent with the structured master data without being typed separately.
As a reporting specialist, I want the Report Description output to include only the most commercially relevant specifications when information flows onto sales documents, so that customers see a clean, well-formed description rather than every internal attribute stored on the item.

Key Concepts

Long Item Description — a dedicated read-only field on the Item Card that holds the full merged description. It is built from all Information Code entries that have a Long Description merge pattern assigned and are sorted by their Long Description Order.
Item Description — the standard Description field on the Item Card. The merge feature can optionally write into this field, overwriting it with a merged result based on Information Codes that have an Item Description merge pattern assigned and are sorted by Item Description Order.
Report Description — a third merge output used exclusively by Master Data on Documents at the time a document is generated. It is controlled by the Report Description merge pattern and Report Description Order settings on each Information Code.
Description Setup — a reusable library of named merge patterns. Each pattern defines which elements to include (Information Code description, Information Value description, Value, and/or free-text Description), what separator characters to place between them, and the order in which the three elements appear. Patterns are shared across all Information Codes and are referenced by name.
Long Description Order / Item Description Order / Report Description Order — numeric fields on each Information Code (and on each individual information entry) that control the sequence in which that code's contribution is appended to the merged description. Lower numbers appear first.
Update Merge Descriptions — an action available on the Information Code List and Information Setup pages that recalculates and refreshes the merged description fields for all items or a selected range. This is typically run after changes to Description Setup, Information Code settings, or bulk data imports.
Merge Item Description — a setting in the Master Data Information Setup that controls whether and how the merged result is written into the standard item Description field. Options include leaving the Description untouched, replacing it with the merged result, or writing it to the Description 2 field.

Relations to Other Features or Apps

Within the Master Data Information app, Merge Descriptions is built entirely on top of Information Codes and the information entries recorded in Information Setup. The Description Setup patterns are also used by Master Data on Documents when generating the Report Description on documents. The Translations feature integrates closely — when translated Information Values or Extended Texts exist for a language, the merge engine uses the translated content when building descriptions for that language, which then updates Business Central's Item Translations if the Update Item Translation setting is enabled.

Within standard Business Central, the feature writes into the standard Description, Search Description, and Description 2 fields on the Item Card, as well as the Item Translation table. This means that merged descriptions flow naturally into all standard Business Central processes that rely on item descriptions, including sales documents, purchase documents, reports, and item lookups.

When This Feature Adds Value

When your item catalogue is large and manually maintaining consistent item descriptions across hundreds or thousands of items is error-prone or time-consuming.
When item names are compound — built from multiple attributes like material, grade, dimension, and finish — and you want the naming convention enforced automatically rather than relying on individual users to follow a standard.
When you sell to customers in multiple languages and need translated item descriptions to stay in sync with the structured specification data without a separate translation workflow.
When you need different description formats for different purposes — a full internal description stored on the item card, a shorter or differently formatted description written into the standard Description field, and a document-specific description used on customer-facing output.