In Salesforce, divisions are a means to improve query and search performance by partitioning data into logical buckets called "divisions". However, like with the Person Accounts feature, many admins may hesitate and think twice about enabling divisions due to this warning: "Enabling divisions is irreversible. After implementing divisions, you cannot revert back to a state that does not have division fields."
"Irreversible", huh? Well... what's the real risk with enabling divisions? I think there is no significant risk.
According to Salesforce Help (Summer '15), enabling divisions may affect (or not) nine key areas. But it seems like the effects can be easily negated or suppressed.
| Area | Reversal Strategy |
|---|---|
| Search | Revoke the "Affected by Divisions" permission. |
| List views | Revoke the "Affected by Divisions" permission. |
| Chatter | Not supported (i.e., affected). |
| Reports | Revoke the "Affected by Divisions" permission. |
| Viewing records and related lists | Not affected. |
| Creating new records | Set to the global division. |
| Editing records | Set to the global division. |
| Custom objects | Set to the global division. |
| Relationships | Set to the global division. |
In short, if you want to give divisions a try, talk to a few people about enabling the feature. If the foremost argument against enabling divisions is simply that it's irreversible, go ahead and just enable it anyway (in a full sandbox first). If it doesn't work for you, you can always revoke the Affected by Divisions permission from all users.
