Troubleshooting serial numbers

Serial number problems nearly always come down to a serial being in the wrong status, on the wrong job, or in the wrong format. Start by finding out what happened to it, then undo or redo the right transaction.

First: find out what happened

• The Serial Number Tracker shows a serial’s current status and location, its transaction history and, on the lower-level serials tab, the component serials matched to it.
• For anything the tracker doesn’t make clear, query the SNTran table. It holds a row for every serial number transaction, so filtering it by part and serial number and sorting by date shows the whole story. SerialNo holds the current state.

Knowing the last transaction tells you which one to reverse.

A user overrode the mask and broke the sequence

Symptom: a serial number on a part doesn’t follow the part’s format, and the numbers generated afterwards clash with it or no longer run in order.

Cause: in Serial Number Assignment, users can type their own serial number instead of taking the one generated from the mask. The mask’s sequence carries on independently, so the typed number sits outside it, or collides with a number the mask produces later.

Fix: if the serial hasn’t been fully processed, walk it back and remove it:

1. In Serial Number Assignment, open the job, open the serial number selection and move the serial from Selected back to Available.
2. If no labor has been posted against it, this deletes it outright. If labor has been posted, it’s left with the status Unassign.
3. Delete the leftover serial in Serial Number Maintenance if it is still there, then assign a correctly generated one.

Prevention: add a validation mask to the part so typed serials must match the format, and train users to use the generate option. See Serial number masks and prefixes.

New serials have the wrong prefix

Cause: the part’s site record still holds an old serial prefix, often carried over from earlier setup.

Fix: correct SNPrefix on the affected parts’ site records, in bulk with a Part Plant DMT update. See Fixing prefixes in bulk with DMT. Existing serials keep their numbers.

A serial was assigned to the wrong job

Fix: in Serial Number Assignment for the wrong job, move the serial back from Selected to Available:

• With no labor posted against it, the serial is deleted completely. Recreate it on the right job, by typing it in if you need the same number.
• With labor already posted, it becomes Unassign. Open the right job in Serial Number Assignment, type the serial number in and select it to reassign it.

A serial is in the wrong status

Cause: a transaction was done out of order, reversed partly, or done without the serials that should have gone with it.

Fix: put it right with the transaction that normally sets the status you want, rather than editing the status directly:

Serial is	Should be	Do this
Inventory	WIP	Issue it to the job
WIP	Inventory	Return the material to the warehouse
Inspection	Inventory	Complete it in inspection processing
Consumed	WIP or available	Unmatch it in Serial Matching (see matching)
Shipped	Inventory	Reverse the shipment
DMR	Anything else	Disposition it in DMR processing

Editing the status in Serial Number Maintenance is a last resort, for cases like the matching fix where no reversing transaction exists.

Matching or shipping problems

• Available to Match is empty, or a serialized job won’t ship: see Serial matching and shipping.