Serial Number Uniqueness

Unique Stock Tracing Component Only

CAPITAL supports 3 levels of uniqueness for unique stock trace properties, such as serial numbers. These are:

1. No Uniqueness

Certain stock properties do not need to be unique. Batch numbers, colours and sizes may all apply to more than one product or group of products. For example, two or more products may offer items that come in the colour red. Serial numbers normally have some form of uniqueness, however.

2. Product Uniqueness

This is where you can have the serial number appearing in your stock system more than one, but you cannot have the same serial number for the same product. For example:

Product "ABC" can be assigned serial number "1000" and Product "EFG" can be assigned serial number "1000" but product "ABC" or "EFG" can only be assigned serial number "1000" once each. This is useful if you or your supplier decides to issue separate serial number sequences for each individual product item.

3. Total Uniqueness

When a property is specified as being totally unique you cannot have the same serial number for any product item that is assigned to this property.

This rule also applies to non-unique properties such as sizes and colours. This generally does not present a problem as a size or colour or style normally has a different format from a serial number sequence. This strict rule does not apply to properties that have been assigned product uniqueness.

If you will be defining stock items with total uniqueness as a property, the assignments against those items should be sufficiently unique to make the possibility of accidental clashes with other assigned properties very unlikely.

Which Uniqueness Setting Should I Use?

If you never want the same serial number repeated, regardless of the product, tick Unique.

If each individual product must have a unique serial number, but two different products can be validly assigned the same number, then specify uniqueness by product only.