Is it possible to prevent duplicate Stock Numbers?

[Anonymous]

In my company we require the Stock Number to be unique.  Is there a way to prevent a user from checking in files that duplicate the stock number of something already in Vault?

[ccomito.rsi]

Are the stock numbers the same as your part numbers?

[Anonymous]

Sometimes, but not always.

[ccomito.rsi]

I may be wrong on this but I'm pretty sure that Vault basic only requires unique files names (if setup that way). All other properties can be duplicated as far as I know.

[Anonymous]

Right, hence my question.  We already have unique filenames turned on.  Is there a different way to enforce a unique stocknumber?

Users will be checkign files in via the Inventor Vault addin.  

[ccomito.rsi]

You might be able to do it with some additional programming (or mapping) but I'm pretty sure you are out of luck. I'm not sure if the pro version can do this or not but it might be worth looking into. My suggestion would be to make the file name the same as the stock number if at possible... (not like you didn't think of that).

[Anonymous]

Not out-of-the-box, you might be able to write some iLogic code to do this. I was even thinking of iPropWiz but didn't see any feature for unique values. I know that Vault's Item Master is limited to name uniqueness. This might be a good request for Autodesks Vault ideastation.

[Anonymous]

Alternatively, is there a way to find all items with duplicate stock numbers?  This wouldn't prevent creation of them, but it would help me identify them.

[akhidrosyidi]

• Alternatively, is there a way to find all items with duplicate stock numbers?  This wouldn't prevent creation of them, but it would help me identify them.

if your question is how to find duplicate stock numbers, that is eazy. you can set some properties map in the vault, and search by specific properties you want to check.

that is manual work, and maybe the borring jobs for  CAD administrator. 

alternatively you must create some script to handle this jobs.

[tmoney2007]

Just as a thought exercise,... why would they need to be different?

In reality, an item would only need one unique identifier.

The function to be able to create other properties that are unique could be useful, but at first blush... why do you need a unique stock number when you already have a unique part number? Use the part number as the stock number and you can be sure that they will be unique, and you or another cad admin won't have to spend time on the issue.

[Anonymous]

Internally we use one number format. Externally we have to use another number format.  We don't get much say in this due to who we work with.

[tmoney2007]

That kind of thing is always painful... We occasionally are required to put customer drawing numbers on our drawings, its kind of painful. Fortunately, for parts, we can assign our own part numbers to vendor parts and ERP and procurement manage the relationship between our numbers and theirs.

Are these customer numbering schemes relatively standard? Could a program be written to automatically assign them or are they dictated by the customer? Or does the user have to manually enter them and then check if it is unique?

If the schemes can be programmed, the user could select the customer and then a program could reserve the next available number and put it into the iProperty. Then you would know it was unique.

Alternately, if you indexed the Stock Number property in vault, you could create a program that searches for files with that property the same as the one you are trying to check in and stops you if it isn't unique.

No matter what, it is going to require custom programming, because the only thing you can require to be unique is the filename, and by extension, the part number.

[Anonymous]

The numbering schemes depend on the job. It's not something that can easily be assigned programmatically, but checking for duplication should still be possible.  I wish this was a supported feature, but it looks like we're going to have to write a program just to look for duplicates.

[Anonymous]

we have the same problem as we allocate drawing/part numbers and warehouse stock numbers to an item(which are duplicated in our SAP system for buying parts).

To stop duplicates arrising we have been painstakingly doing a set search criteria to get the next number available and checking for duplicates. 

This is something that should really be a tick box for checking duplicates tab , where you just tick the property that needs checking.