Use address state/province CODE field - can this be used without being linked to the state text field?

Question

When Salesforce was set up in our organisation, the State text field part of the compound address was repurposed to store the City data instead (City field is being used for Suburb, since there isn't a field for this). We now have a problem in that we require a State field as well, and I was hoping to be able to use the StateCODE field, but this field doesn't show up when editing at all. Yet the documentation seems to indicate that it should be?

Are the 2 fields inseparable, ie we can't use the one without it being linked to the other? Changing the way things work would require a major code rework (to revert State = state and City = city). The alternative is just creating a custom field for State data.

Answer 1

Yes, State and StateCode are intractably linked. You can't see it in the UI, because it's just State (or Mailing State, etc). The reason why it exists at all is so that you can have a fully written out State (e.g. Colorado), while having an abbreviated form (e.g. CO) for validating addresses, sending mail, etc. You've already stated your choices here: you can either add a custom field, or move the data. I would personally recommend moving the data, and creating a City field instead. There are many standard and custom features (e.g. AppExchange) that depend on this data being in the right place, so fixing the problem now would be the best solution, in my opinion.