Changing Product Reference names v Old Order info

[BillDodd]

I have a client that has two sites. One holds the Web / Development (DEV) information and one that is used by the Customer Services (CS). A few Product References need changing. There is a routine for deleting a few tables in the CS database and transferring the DEV tables to replace the deleted ones.

The Order information is exported to a bespoke Access PO control system and the CS database is manipulated by both Actinic and Moleend Order Enquiry applications.

I am concerned about referential integrity and how the CS database copes with changing old orders.

Has anybody got any sugestions before the operation for changing the Product References goes ahead?

Many thanks

[Jan]

The product reference is a key in the Actinic database, so you should change it in Actinic and then also in your bespoke system (unless it is using the actinic database). Any Mole End software should be able to cope with product reference changes, but it might be worth posting here which modules you are using so that I can confirm that.

You will not be able to change the existing orders on the database - the only way to do this would be by editing the access database, which you should not really do.

Regards,

[BillDodd]

Thank you for that. I believe that the client only has the Mole End Multi User Order Processing module. The only changes to orders would be cancellation of a line or a part cancellation. Additions to existing orders would be by using the new Product References.

Export of the orders to Sage would be by value only as far as I can see, so that would not be a problem.

What happens if someone tries to cancel part of an order for a Product Reference that has changed? Either in Actinic or Mole End?

Many thanks again.

[Jan]

Usually when you cancel an item in an order, the item is put back into stock, however if the reference has changed, this doesn't happen, so you will have to manually adjust the stock levels for products with changed references.

The only side effect I can think of for our program would be that if you wanted to filter on products, you would have to specify two references now to make sure that all orders where included.

Regards,