Screen Options - Increment Code within ‘Location’

A common use for a ProFiler application can be to develop additional features for stock control including replacing the standard stock maintenance screens with a ProFiler equivalent – this can allow more screens to be used for maintenance or to allow extra validation options such as increased look-up items. When using location stock the standard applications allow the operator to enter the location and the stock code as separate inputs and ProFiler supports the selection of stock records in this way via the ‘Ignore Sel’ options within the Data File Profiles of the ProFiler application.

ProFiler screens generally allow for the automatic incrementing of prime-index references but this is based on the ‘whole’ code and wasn’t supported for use with the split location input. This new feature allows the facility to increment codes based on the selected location record.

Note that although the example here is for use for stock maintenance this facility is available generally within ProFiler screens where there is a requirement for prime-index references to be entered in two parts with a ‘location’ style reference.

Installation

Database Changes

Two new items are required on the ‘location’ file for this feature. If using this facility for stock maintenance then to add these new items select Installation from the main menu followed by Application Manager and then Restructure A Database. Select the Stock Control application. Elect to update the Live Files and then select the Stock Location File.

If using this facility for another reason then amend the ‘location’ database via the ProFiler Database Restructure options available by selecting Database Systems from the main menu and then ProFiler Application Definition, Database Utilities and then Restructure A Database and enter the database filename.

The existing data items are then displayed on screen, scroll-down to the next available blank entries and create the following items:

Item Type Description

INCREMENT ? Flag item to identify whether items added within this ‘location’ are to suggest a new code based on a automatically incremented reference.

LAST-CODE Y Holds the last referenced added. Note that this item should be sized as per the numeric portion of the index format (excluding ‘location’) and the maximum size is eight characters.

To insert a new item press <Enter> against a blank entry, enter the title as required and press <Enter>, select the item type (using the drop-down list if required), and depending on item type select the size required.

Once the additional items have been recorded press the <ESC> key and select the UPDATE button to save the database changes. When prompted respond ‘Y’ to the prompts to ‘Extract Existing Data to New Database Structure’ and, if appropriate, ‘Copy Table Entries from Old Database to New Database’. Final prompts ask to ‘Remove (.OLD) Database’ and, if restructuring an application database, to ‘Carry Out the Same Restructure on the BASE File as well’ – respond as required. If you select to update the base file you need to manually insert the new items at the same data item positions as on the live file.

ProFiler Data File Profiles

The ‘location’ style split input is controlled via the ‘Ignore Sel’ function for the main database which is accessed via the Data File Profiles option within the ProFiler Application Generator and the new increment options are also enabled here.

Firstly though, for the auto-increment option the code format needs to be numeric (for the none ‘location’ element) and no longer than eight characters.

Setting the ‘Ignore Sel’ option gives a pop-up asking for:

Item– Select the main prime index for the database.

Eq/NEq– Set to ‘S’ to enable split code input for this item

Value– When using ‘location’ style input this option is set as Location File No / Main File Number and then ‘L’ – i.e. 2/1L.To enable the auto-increment facility this is appended with ‘_nnn_nnn’ where the first ‘nnn’ is the three-digit item on the location item that identifies whether codes are to be incremented and the second ‘nnn’ is the three digit item on the location file that holds the last code added, the completed value setting will be represented as ‘2/1L_009_010’ (for example).