Control numbers

Control Number is a data type for fields that is described in Control number fields. The value of a Control Number field can be the next number in an automatically generated sequence of numbers. A business object can contain at most one Control Number field.

The system generates a record's control number when the record transitions from the null state to any other state. The sequence of numbers generated in a business object's Control Number field is controlled by some of the business object's mapping properties. You can see these properties located to the right of the words Control Number.

The main part of a control number is a sequence number. If a Control Number field's Generate on Create check box is checked, then each time a new record is created from the business object, a sequence number one greater than previous number is used to form the control number. The number that is the value of the business object's mapping property labelled Start With will be used as the next sequence number.

It is common for a control number to have more parts than only its sequence number. The control number may have a prefix or suffix that is a fixed piece of text or the value of one of the record's fields. A control number may have any number or prefixes or suffixes.

To add a prefix or suffix to a control number, click the Find link to the right of the Prefix or Suffix label. When you click one of these Find links, a Type Field form appears under the mapping properties in the Data Modeler's Property panel. This Type Field form has more options on it than the Type Field form used for a business object's name.

In the Type Field form, while the Attribute Type radio button is selected, we can specify that the value of the control number prefix/suffix will come from the field specified by the selected Section Name and Field Name values.

If we want the prefix or suffix to be a fixed piece of text, rather than the value of a field, we can select the Constant Value radio button. Whatever text we supply for its Constant Text field will be the contents of the prefix or suffix being specified. When we select the Constant Value radio button, the Type Field form looks like the following figure.

In order to make sense of a control number that has prefixes or suffixes, there must be a way to tell where each part of the control number begins and ends. This is done by specifying that a particular character will be used as punctuation between each part of the control number. The character chosen for this purpose is called the delimiter. For example, a control number that has been specified to have a hyphen as its delimiter might look like 3243-56-R.

To specify which character will be used as the delimiter, we would select a character for the value named Delimiter. The possible choices for delimiter character are: space ( ), hyphen (-), period (.), and comma (,).

One last setting that is sometimes of use is the check box labeled Based on Prefix. When this check box is not checked, the sequence number part of a new record's control number is always one greater than the sequence number for the previous record created from the same business object. When the Based on Prefix check box is checked, the sequence number for a new record is one greater than the sequence number for the previous record that had the same prefix.

For example, suppose that you want line items in a purchase order to have a control number that is prefixed by the purchase order's control number. The line item numbers in a purchase order with control number 3452 might look like 3452.1, 3452.2, 3452.3, and so on. The difficulty is that the line items for a purchase order may not be created at the same time.

It may happen that the first few line items for a purchase order are created, then another purchase order is created with its own line items, and then more line items are added to the first purchase order. The line item numbers for the first purchase order are still expected to look like 3452.1, 3452.2, 3452.3, and so on.

To arrange for this to happen, you would first make sure that the business object for purchase order line items has a smart section that contains the purchase order's control number. We could then specify the purchase order's control number as the prefix for the line item's control number. By checking the Based on Prefix check box, we would cause the sequence number portion of the line item's control numbers to start from the first value for each purchase order and continue in sequence.