To get us started, I was moved by a necropost from @Hally:
Came across a new table for me…ice.PatchFld… What is this? - Epicor ERP 10 - Epicor User Help Forum
which spurred this Idea:
Remove Ice.PatchFld and replace with User Defined columns - KIN-I-5669
Ice.PatchFld has been allegedly on the way out for quite some time.
As a modest proposal, can we use the User Defined Column capability to add “new” fields to the
_UD table? Unlike customer added fields, these Epicor created fields would NOT have the trailing “_c” on the field names. For example, in 2024.1 there is a CRMMenu Field name for the MENU table. In this case, add CRMMenu to MENU_UD (without the _c). At the next upgrade, the field would be moved from the _UD table to the main table.