System Number Providers Single Dialogs Workspace

Use this workspace to enable the system number providers functionality and monitor or make changes to the number of providers.

This feature is supported for invoices, credit memos, zero-invoices, and zero-credit-memos.

System numbers provide unique system-assigned numbers for company records such as jobs, journals, or invoices. A system number is a shared resource that is locked by Maconomy when you obtain a new number. Until you finish the process, no other user can obtain a number of the same type.

The system number providers feature resolves this issue by introducing multiple records, called system number providers, each of which contains one system number of a given type. Each of these records can be locked independently, which allows multiple users of the same process to obtain system numbers simultaneously. For example, multiple users can print invoices simultaneously, without blocking each other.

To activate the system number providers feature, you configure two parameters by setting the Number of Providers and Bound fields in the System Number Providers island in the System Number tab. See the field descriptions for more information.

After you enable the system number providers feature the behavior of the Next Number field in the System Setup workspace changes. Rather than displaying the next number to be assigned, it displays one of the numbers that will be assigned in the future.

In addition, changes to the values of either the Next Number field or the Number of Providers field do not always take effect immediately. They take effect gradually as users obtain new numbers. As a result, you might have a period of time during which Maconomy assigns numbers from both the old sequence (before the value for either of these fields changed) and the new sequence (after the change). If you changed the value of either of these fields recently, and not enough invoices (for example) have been printed for that change to be fully in effect, Maconomy does not allow you to make another change; instead, it displays an error message.

Number of providers - Enter a number of providers. This should take into account the number of users and the amount of time they normally take to print an invoice. The number you choose should be high enough to accommodate all your users so that they do not waste any time waiting to be assigned a number, but low enough so that not too many providers are left unused too often.

Note: Entering a value of 0 or 1 in this field disables the functionality. Maconomy then uses the former method of obtaining system numbers.

Bound - This field controls the difference between the smallest and largest system number that can be printed at a given time