Dealing with material lables and unit s

[kiteguy]

I am using the Resource Material Lable as a part number and tracking quantities in Resource Usage view. However it is very confusing to see the quantity embedded in the lable text.

In a resource Usage vieew or report I need to get the material lable with the unit quantity and strip off just the quantity, the part in (), and display it in separate field.

First: HOw do I grab the label since it does not appear in any of the formula fields?

Second: How do I strip off and display the Quantity?

 

[PDQBach]

You need to be more insightful and will need to be a bit flexible.

Click on Tools | Customize | Fields

Click on Custom Fields tab

In "Type" choose "Text"

Click on "Text1"

Click on the Formula button

Click on the Function button

Click on Text and click on Left

Where the word "string" appears in the formula box double-click on it to highlight it.

Click on the Field button, click on Text, and click on Material Label.

Where the word "length" appears in the formula box double-click on it to highlight it.

Press the number 3.

Now you have a formula which will take the contents of the Material Label field and put the leftmost 3 characters into Text1. You almost certainly want something more sophisticated. That should take you no more than 2 minutes to implement.

 

[kiteguy]

Thanks, but I may have misled you somewhat. I'm using the Material Lable as a part number but the quantity is calculated by the program and appended to the front of this and displayed as Work, Remaining Work, etc., when assigned to a task. This is the value I need.

I tried your suggestion and it works partially. I changed the field to Remaining Work from Material Label and tried it. I got the following:

Material Label Qty(new field) Remaining Work
TSE-004453 6 1 TSE-004453
TSE-007764 0 0 TSE-007764

As you can see the Qty is wrong. For 0-9 I get 0, 60, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, ... or a multiples of 60 and 6. I can get to work by dividing the formyla by 60 as in; (Left, [Work], 5)/60)). I don't know why 60 works and not 6. It is also dependant on the number of characters selected; 5 works but lower numbers don't.

The second problem is that I only get the summary value. In other words, for a particular material resource I may have 4 separate task assignments each with different resource usage. The are displayed as:

Resource Name Qty Remaining Work
- Drill, 1/4" 6 6 TSE-004453
Ship 1/4 drill 2 TSE-004453*
Ship 1/4 drill 3 TSE-004453*
Ship 1/4 drill 1 TSE-004453*

* these in italliacs.

How do I get the individual part quantities and not just the summary ?

I know this may seem trival but it is only a stop gap until we can get this linked into a Access or other database.

Thanks again. You've been a great help!

 

[PDQBach]

"Remaining Work" was probably not a good choice. This field is a time field and is tracked by minutes (though it might be tracked by seconds -- I can't remember off the top of my head).

Stick to text fields and number fields.

As the shampoo instructions go: lather, rinse, repeat. Looks like you're at the "repeat" phase. Report back on your progress.

 

[kiteguy]

That's why I had to divide by 60 to get the qty to work out right!

I think I've found another solution by leaving the Material Label field blank and using the Resource Name or Code fields for the part number. this way the Remaining Work field displays just the quantity.

This also gets around the summary task problem. The quantity (actually minutes) in the Remaining Work field are rolling up into the summary and that's why they won't display on each instance.

Thanks Again!