It’s been a while since the topic has come up, but when would one use Attributes vs Tags vs UD Fields? I’ve never used attributes but maybe I’m missing the use case. (Don’t have AUOM either)
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I thought you needed AUOM for Dynamic Attributes?
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Are you referring to Attribute as in ‘Attribute Maintenance’? And Tags = Data Tags?
As far as I am aware, Attributes are very limited in where they can be applied. Only Customers and Suppliers.
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And maybe that’s the thing. Attributes have been on customers and suppliers for awhile. I see an attribute tab in Part but also Dynamic Attributes.
(Yes, Data Tags!)
I have a use case, but I was curious about the purpose. If dynamic attributes ONLY apply to AUOM, then we’re done. But if they could be defined and used in directives, functions, reports, etc. then maybe I’ll stay with it.
Today we’re doing everything with YAUD (yet another UD field). But multiselect/tilde-delimited lists are not fun to use. Despite my personality, I prefer normalization.
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Dynamic Attributes are specific to AUOM.
The Attributes section of Part Maintenance is unrelated to the ‘Attribute’ entity. It’s just a coincidence in naming.
I’ve never used Data Tags, but I’d be interested to hear from those who have.
We also use UD fields, tilde-delimited multi-value fields, and functions to handle splitting/joining.
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Personally if the data needs viewing in many places I will stick to UD Fields
From a development / integration standpoint I mainly use Data Tags as a way to ‘tag’ a record for action.
Such as marking an order as ‘ZohoCRMSync’ indicating the record has had changes and needs to be synced in an integration and then the tag deleted when synced.
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Same and not just for integration. One time I had a new part checklist that tagged all the things wrong with a part (Buy part without standard cost, etc.) so that a BAQ search can just bring them up for someone to act on. Directives and Functions are excellent at getting and setting Data Tags, so user intervention is not required.
Thanks everyone!
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Dynamic Attributes: Although most of the features are resticted to AUOM and Configurator licenses, I believe Dynamic Attribute Class, Attributes and Values are all available without those licenses and you can create a DynAttrClass related to Part entity and create AttributeSets assigned to part masters and specify Attributes on Quote Line (maybe SOrd, Job too for MFG parts, I forget. So it’s kinda there for MFG parts, it seems. (?)
Beyond that you cannot specify an AttributeSet in any inventory transactions like PO, Receipt, Qty Adjustment, etc so it’s not super useful without AUOM. I suppose it could be an okay place to store an attribute/value hierarcy for use in other ways. We have AUOM and looked at it for storing our attribute hierarchy (for non-dynamic parts, meaning no UOM to piece conversions) and still decided to keep our hierarcy external. We might create a simple class for parts we make (pressure vessels) just to see if there’s any value having AttributeSet on the JobPart. Like: Volume, PSI, Jacketed, ASME, Metallurgy, etc. Just so maybe we can find like tanks sometime later on (we’re ETO)
Data Tags: We’ve tried DataTags as an easy way to tag and search Vendors in a many-to-many fashion. Like: Supplier Search > by Tag > Pipe & Plate to find suppliers of both part types. Supplier Group is one-to-one and attributes took more steps or couldn’t easily ‘and’ search to get ‘supplies both’ if i recall.
Part Attributes: We opted to load the Part Attributes page with data from our hierarchy which helps for search and display on PartType-specific list views. Pipe View has diam and Plate View has thickness for example. This was feasible because we manage our Part Master attribute hierarchy externally so the mapping was trivial. I’d guess those values are rarely populated otherwise except for highly controlled environments.
PS - I can neither confirm nor deny adding some menus to hidden screens and setting EnableInventoryAttributes = true on some MDs to see how far you can go before licensing AUOM.
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