product reference no longer reused

[fleetwood]

It used to be (in my old Cat5 site) that when you deleted a product and purged, the old product reference would be reused (not desirable, but part of how Access works).

Now (in Cat10), old product references don't appear to be reused, and every new product gets a new consecutive number.
This is desirable, I just wondered how it was being achieved.

I couldn't find any reference to this change being made somewhere along the route from version 5 to 10, so does anyone know if there was a change made to the way Actinic handles old product references, and how this is being achieved.

[Duncan Rounding]

I presume you're referring to Auto Generating Product REferences. I just tested this on a default store and if I delete a product and then purge the catalog the old reference is reused on the next new product addition.

Did you purge and compact?

EDIT: That said on further testing it appears that the above is only the case as long as you haven't created another product before compacting. So if you ever skip a number, then purging and compacting does not reuse it.

[fleetwood]

We sell periodicals, so lots of new products added every week, whilst lots also have to be deleted, otherwise the db will bloat.
Yes, I purge and compact all the time.

I prefer that all new products get a new consecutive reference, as otherwise, once you have deleted a product, your sales reports cannot be re-run, without the risk of errors ie it used to be that sales reports would show the current short description associated with a product ref, but would count all sales associated with that ref, including the old (pre-deleted) short description.

As I couldn't find a mention made of changes made to the database regarding this, I just wondered if it is indeed a change, or just somehow I have fluked with new settings.

By default, Access will reuse old record numbers. I'm guessing this could be worked around by Actinic storing all used numbers, and only creating the next one in sequence, rather than one Access makes available, but would like to know for sure.

[Paul Bulpit]

Why not switch off 'auto-generate' and either

• keep a record of what reference to use next, or
• develop your own system of magazine | month/year ('BEANO201105' ) or
• Periodical | Volume | Issue Number ('FHM-V17-5')

? (Beware odd characters in Product References).

That's what we do (though we only supply two periodicals amongst '000's other products).

[fleetwood]

Thanks Paul
I'm not so much looking for an alternative, although that is an idea, more an explanation in what has changed in either the database, or the functionality of Actinic, that has caused this change in behavior.