Increasing serial number digits, after transactions made: Back D

Yahoo Archive
1
Ok, good to know...we are going to be using this soon so I wanted to get
the low down before we limited ourselves!

Thanks for the info!


M. Manasa Reddy
manasa@...
P: 630-806-2000
F: 630-806-2001


________________________________

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Kerry_Muntz
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:33 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: Increasing serial number digits, after
transactions made: Back Door method





Yes, our original format was 4 digits only, and self-imposed. The serial
numbered parts were created back in versions 6.0 / 6.1, and in those
versions increasing the number of serial number digits was easy and just
part of normal functionality. But after going to V8 this ability to
change was gone. (Actually we had realized we'd need to change the
number of digits before going Live, but had already found our workaround
in Pilot Testing.)

--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com <mailto:vantage%40yahoogroups.com> ,
"Manasa Reddy" <manasa@...> wrote:
>
> Out of curiosity, when you first created the SN Format, did you limit
it
> to 4 characters? Is that why you "had" to go the route you went with
in
> the customization?
>
>
>
> M. Manasa Reddy
> manasa@...
> P: 630-806-2000
> F: 630-806-2001






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2
Hi – we had a problem where we had to increase the number of digits in our serial number to allow for some unforeseen changes to our business. Officially in version 8 this can't be done after there have been serial number transactions (we did ask) – and the correct workaround is create a new part number, or to use a prefix (which is undesirable for several reasons).

However, we found a back door method to change the number of digits, and I thought I'd share it here to help anyone else this may affect. The following instruction was specifically to change from (numeric only) 4 digits to 5 digits, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work for other numbers:
========================================
How to change serial number digits from x4 to x5 characters (undocumented back-door method; Epicor either aren't aware of this, or don't want to admit to the existence of this back door).

Back Door Method:
1) Freshly logon to Vantage
2) Enter Developer Mode
3) Open Part Maintenance, & choose or make a customization (any should work)
4) Click "S/N FormatÂ…" & choose or make a customization (any should work)
5) Right mouse click the Serial Number Format window, and choose "Customize".
6) Click in the "Number Of Digits:" box
7) Note the neNumberOfDigits now shows in The Customization Tools Dialog box : change the Text value from "4" to "5"
8) Save and close the Customization Tools Dialog window
9) Save and close Part Maintenance
10) Important! Do "nothing else" at this point – ie stay out of Part Tracker etc.
11) Re-logon to Vantage and check the changes have saved. If they have not, try again, but choose different customizations. As stated above, this may take several attempts, but will invariably work eventually. ALSO NOTE, that it's important to make sure you give enough time for Vantage to `catch up' after saves etc (users with slower machines have noticed this process doesn't work unless they `slow down' at each stepÂ… I hope that makes sense.)

Variations to the above procedure may also work – but the above is shown to have success much more often than not, and I recommend you follow it exactly. To date we haven't seen any bad side effects from this method. Proven to work on 8.03.405A

(Actually we were really scared that this works! It really shouldn't. We really hope that Epicor don't 'fix' this back door!)
3
Out of curiosity, when you first created the SN Format, did you limit it
to 4 characters? Is that why you "had" to go the route you went with in
the customization?



M. Manasa Reddy
manasa@...
P: 630-806-2000
F: 630-806-2001


________________________________

From: vantage@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vantage@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Kerry_Muntz
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:18 PM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] Increasing serial number digits, after transactions
made: Back Door method





Hi - we had a problem where we had to increase the number of digits in
our serial number to allow for some unforeseen changes to our business.
Officially in version 8 this can't be done after there have been serial
number transactions (we did ask) - and the correct workaround is create
a new part number, or to use a prefix (which is undesirable for several
reasons).

However, we found a back door method to change the number of digits, and
I thought I'd share it here to help anyone else this may affect. The
following instruction was specifically to change from (numeric only) 4
digits to 5 digits, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work for other
numbers:
========================================
How to change serial number digits from x4 to x5 characters
(undocumented back-door method; Epicor either aren't aware of this, or
don't want to admit to the existence of this back door).

Back Door Method:
1) Freshly logon to Vantage
2) Enter Developer Mode
3) Open Part Maintenance, & choose or make a customization (any should
work)
4) Click "S/N Format..." & choose or make a customization (any should
work)
5) Right mouse click the Serial Number Format window, and choose
"Customize".
6) Click in the "Number Of Digits:" box
7) Note the neNumberOfDigits now shows in The Customization Tools Dialog
box : change the Text value from "4" to "5"
8) Save and close the Customization Tools Dialog window
9) Save and close Part Maintenance
10) Important! Do "nothing else" at this point - ie stay out of Part
Tracker etc.
11) Re-logon to Vantage and check the changes have saved. If they have
not, try again, but choose different customizations. As stated above,
this may take several attempts, but will invariably work eventually.
ALSO NOTE, that it's important to make sure you give enough time for
Vantage to `catch up' after saves etc (users with slower machines have
noticed this process doesn't work unless they `slow down' at each
step... I hope that makes sense.)

Variations to the above procedure may also work - but the above is shown
to have success much more often than not, and I recommend you follow it
exactly. To date we haven't seen any bad side effects from this method.
Proven to work on 8.03.405A

(Actually we were really scared that this works! It really shouldn't. We
really hope that Epicor don't 'fix' this back door!)






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
4
Yes, our original format was 4 digits only, and self-imposed. The serial numbered parts were created back in versions 6.0 / 6.1, and in those versions increasing the number of serial number digits was easy and just part of normal functionality. But after going to V8 this ability to change was gone. (Actually we had realized we'd need to change the number of digits before going Live, but had already found our workaround in Pilot Testing.)


--- In vantage@yahoogroups.com, "Manasa Reddy" <manasa@...> wrote:
>
> Out of curiosity, when you first created the SN Format, did you limit it
> to 4 characters? Is that why you "had" to go the route you went with in
> the customization?
>
>
>
> M. Manasa Reddy
> manasa@...
> P: 630-806-2000
> F: 630-806-2001