Element

You can use element to define the maximum number of characters and the data type for an attribute value. You must assign an element to every attribute. The element must exist before you can define an attribute with that element.

Types of element include Lawson-defined and user-defined. You can define these types of elements:

• Alpha type, up to 32 characters
• Numeric type, up to 18 characters
• Date type, eight characters
  Note: You can use Attribute, Element Load (MX100) to pre-load Lawson-defined elements along with Lawson-defined attributes.

Lawson-defined attributes have a one-to-one correspondence with Lawson-defined elements. For example, you can associate the company attribute with the company element.

This table shows additional examples of Lawson-defined attributes and corresponding Lawson-defined elements:

You can create user-defined elements within the data type and size restrictions listed above. User-defined elements can be more generic than Lawson-defined elements. You can associate user-defined elements with more than one attribute.

This table shows examples of user-defined attributes and user-defined elements:

You can also associate a Lawson-defined element with a user-defined attribute. For example, you can use the Major Class element, Lawson-defined, Alpha 4 with the user-defined Vertical attribute.