I then had to modify multiple columns to widen them and allow the data to be inserted
Do you mean to say that you modified the column width of the system tables of TeamSite (like ACTIVEMQ_MSG)?
Thats really a helpful point. Thanks; I understood that we are altering the properties of a system table which gets created at the time of installation. Is there any impact of this to the system? especially at the time of version upgrade? Do we have any standard recovery procedures to be followed while doing so?