About "Intelligent" Lot and Serial Numbers

You can assign prefixes to lot and serial numbers that include variable information such as the current month/day/year, the site, the reference type/number/suffix, and/or a literal value, as well as any constant values you specify. You can also still type in a standard prefix such as "SN-".

Maximum size for lot numbers, including the prefix, is 15 characters. Maximum size for serial numbers, including the prefix, is 30 characters.

For information about lot prefixes, see Defining an Intelligent Lot Prefix.

For information about serial number prefixes, see Defining an Intelligent Serial Number Prefix.

Prefix Segments and Placeholders

On the Prefix Definition form, select from the options in this table to create the segments of the prefix. After you specify the segments and the order, they display in the Lot Prefix or S/N Prefix field as tokens, or placeholders, that are replaced by the assigned values when the numbers are actually generated.

See Examples of Serial Number Prefixes.

Note: We recommend that Ref Num, Ref Line/Suffix, and Ref Release placeholders should be followed by a constant value of a hyphen (-) to ensure that results are as expected. We suggest that you use a hyphen because many other characters cannot be read in a bar code.


Placeholder	Option Description	Number of characters	Notes
&M	Month	2
&D	Day	2
&Y	Year	2
&Z	Year	4
&T	Reference Type	1	Character value based on the transaction type: C - Project I - Inventory(JIT/Kanban, Misc Receipts, etc.) J - Job O - Customer order P - Purchase order R - RMA S - Production schedule T - Transfer order
&N	Reference Number	10 (TRIM)	Value based on the transaction type: Project number Inventory - None Job number Customer order number Purchase order number Production schedule number Transfer order number
&L	Reference Line or Suffix	4	Value based on the transaction type: Project task Inventory - None Job suffix Customer order line number Purchase order line number RMA line number Production schedule - None Transfer order line number
&R	Reference Release		Value based on the transaction type: Project sequence Inventory - None Job - None Customer order line release (if 0 then none) Purchase order line release (if 0 then none) RMA - None Production schedule - None Transfer order - None
&S	Site	8 (TRIM)	Alphanumeric site ID
&&	Literal Value "&"	1
(Constant)	Constant value		Specify a value in the Placeholder Value field. These are static characters that are included in the prefix. For example, you can use a hyphen (-) to separate the segments, or include SN- to indicate that this is a serial number.