Auto Number Setup
Within Auto Number Setup, administrators define how CAIRS numbers work orders, trouble tickets, authorizations etc. There are seven columns of information for each numbering setup:
- Component* – defines the component: work order, trouble ticket, official or unofficial account, authorization code, etc.
- Mask – defines the mask that will be used, whether the numbering will be date based or random.
- Enabled* – defines whether you will use the auto-numbering feature within CAIRS.
- Current Increment – The current counter used to hold the value for the most recently used number. For example if the work orders auto number schema is ‘Two digit day, two digit month, two digit year, three digit number incrementing by day (010109001)’ and there have been 3 work orders today, the current increment would be 3. When there is another work order that day the increment would be 4.
- Last Increment Update – This date is the last date the current increment was updated. This lets the system know if it needs to set the current increment back to zero or keep it going. For example if the Trouble Ticket auto number schema is ‘Two digit day, two digit month, two digit year, six digit number incrementing by month (010109000001)’ and the Last Increment Date was the last day of December 2010 and today is January 1st 2011 the system would set the Current Increment to 0 because it is a new month.
- Reset Increment Value – this determines what the first number will be when the auto-number schema is reset
- Use Fiscal Year – defines whether the auto-number resets on the start of your fiscal year or the regular year
Once each auto-number component is defined, when you access the component the word “Auto” appears in the field. After you complete the required fields for the component and click the ‘Save’ or ‘Save & Close’ button CAIRS generates the number based on your selections. You can overwrite the auto number by deleting the word auto and typing in the appropriate information.