Questions regarding the Chained Purchase Order number generation.

Answer

1. What is the logic used to create order numbers for chained purchase orders?
Ans: The order number of chained purchase orders is determined based on sequence SEQ_YFS_ORDER_NO. Please refer to your database and check for this sequence. Y is pre-fixed to the number returned by the sequence. Purchase order numbers can be overridden in YFSGetOrderNoUE for new orders only.

2. What is the maximum length for chained purchase order numbers?
Ans: It can take 40 characters. This is a very huge number and we think it will not get exhausted over a short interval of time.

3. Is there a way to change the default length of (formatted) purchase order numbers through configurations? Will this affect other downstream events?
Ans: No, this constraint is at the database level. Length is changed ONLY in development of new releases of the product. For existing releases, it will remain as designed.

4. In case Sterling does not restrict the (formatted) purchase order numbers, what happens when the maximum field length of the purchase order number field is exhausted. Is there an auto-purge triggered for all closed purchase orders in that scenario?
Ans: Chained orders are purged based on purge retention days. Please refer to the Distributed_Order_Management_Configuration_Guide.pdf, Section A3.3 Available Purge/Order Purge to know when orders are purge eligible.

5. What happens if no purge occurs and all possible purchase order numbers are used (in case of both, formatted and unformatted purchase order numbers)?
Ans: Purge retention days should be set based on both volume of orders and business requirements.

6. In the case of a purge, do the purchase order numbers start over or continue from where they left off?
Ans: No, after purge, purchase order numbers will not start over again.