You may need to uniquely identify products, wires, and cables used in a drawing. On Cloud, you can configure an ID format for products and one for wires and cables. Once defined, you can see the IDs for products, wires, and cables.
Building blocks
The following are the building blocks for configuring the product ID format.
Value
Use the following values to configure the product ID format.
Location number
System (applies only to the product ID of items except wires and cables)
Cable type (applies only to the product ID of wires and cables)
Category
Subcategory
Prefix
Sequence number
For each value you add to the product ID format, Cloud automatically assigns the actual value to the product ID or lets you assign one.
Value | Assignment | Example |
Location number | Automatic | A location number of the location to which the item is added in the quote.
For example, 101, B1-Room205, etc. |
System | Automatic | The characters in the name of the system the item belongs to, for example, AVSYSTEM. |
Cable type | Automatic | The characters in the name of the cable type the wire or cable belongs to, for example, COAXIAL. |
Category | Automatic | The characters in the name of the category the item belongs to, for example, DISPLAYDEVICES. |
Subcategory | Automatic | The characters in the name of the subcategory the item belongs to, for example, TVS. |
Prefix | Manual | An alphanumeric string you can add to the format. For example, "BostonWarehouse". |
Sequence number | Automatic | Cloud generates the sequence number based on the values you specify in the Start Number and Number Padding fields. |
Length
Length is the number of characters shown for a value used in the product
ID format, after ignoring spaces and special characters in the original value. For example, using "Category" with a length of 10 shows only "DISPLAYDEV" for a category named "DISPLAY DEVICES."
You can set the "Length" value from "1" to "10". For "Location number," select "All" to show the full location number.
Seperator
A "Separator" is a special character used to separate 2 values in the product ID format. You can select from the following separators.
Hyphen (-)
Underscore (_)
Period (.)
Forward slash (/)
Colon (:)
Semicolon (;)
Vertical bar (|)
Space
Start number, Number padding, and Prefix
The start number defines the first sequential ID assigned to the first item added to a quote.
The number padding defines the length of the sequence ID. The maximum allowed length is 5.
The prefix is an alphanumeric string you can add to the format. For example, "BostonWarehouse".
For example, with a start number of 100 and number padding of 5, the first item added to the quote is assigned ID 00100, the second 00101, and so on.
Configure the product ID format
To configure the product ID format:
1/ Go to "Settings > Drawing > Product ID" in the left navigation menu.
2/ Click the "Item" tab.
3/ Click "Add" to add values to the format and do the following for each value:
a/ Set the length of the value wherever applicable.
b/ Set the separator that should appear after every value.
4/ Specify the start number, number of digits for padding, and the prefix.
The following screenshot shows the product ID format with 6 values.
5/ Click "Save" to save the format.
Configure the Wire & Cable format
To configure the product ID format:
1/ Go to "Settings > Drawings > Product ID" in the left navigation menu.
2/ Click the "Wire & Cable" tab.
3/ Follow steps 3 to 4 as described for configuring the product ID. The only exception is that when configuring the Wire & Cable ID, you can add the "Cable Type" value, not the "System" value.
For more details on setting the Cable Type for wires and cables, check out this article.
The following screenshot shows the wire and cable ID format with 6 values.
4/ Click "Save" to save the format.
Key notes
Here are a few things you need to know about the product ID and wire and cable ID format.
You can define the product ID and wire and cable ID formats using the defaults. In this case, Cloud assigns product IDs and wire and cable IDs based on the location number, start number, and padding. For example, with a start number of 1 and padding of 3, Cloud assigns product IDs of 101-001, 101-002, and so on for items in the location "101."
If you change either of the formats under "Settings > Drawings > Product ID" after the products and wires have been assigned IDs, you need to regenerate the IDs to apply the new format(s).
Check out this article for more details.