Forum Discussion

brogers_1's avatar
brogers_1
Occasional Contributor
13 years ago

Auto-incrementing fields with designated prefix

Is there a way to create a field in the requirements/defects modules that auto-increments as the ID field does, but begins with a user-defined prefix? For example, since the requirement and defect ID's are not unique to each other (there can be a defect ID# 4 and a requirement ID# 4), it would be beneficial to have defects be assigned with a D before an ID number, and requirements begin with an R, or whatever naming convention is decided upon, so we could reference defect #4 as D0004 etc.



Thanks,

Brian
  • barbarae's avatar
    barbarae
    Staff
    13 years ago
    Hi Brian!

    As you've noticed, each 'entity' carried it's own unique identifier number - specific to that entity. So Defects has it's own list of ID numbers, Requirements has it's own, etc.

    We've discussed several enhancements that we'd like to do for custom fields, including something like an auto-incremented numeric field. We do something sort of like this in Requirements Titles, where you can put REQ-XXXX in the title and it will auto-increment the title to REQ-0001. I believe it looks for three alpha characters, a dash, and then X's. But it's only in Requirements, and only in the Title.

    I'll add your suggestion to the enhancement discussion.

    Thanks for your input, we appreciate it!
  • brogers_1's avatar
    brogers_1
    Occasional Contributor
    13 years ago
    Is there a way to use fast edit to change all the titles of requirements to begin with that string?
  • barbarae's avatar
    barbarae
    Staff
    13 years ago
    Hi Brian -

    Do you mean replacing the three letters like "REQ"? If so, then Fast Edit will do it for you.

    On the list of Requirements, click Fast Edit and select 'Update a phrase in multiple items'. Over on the right, select Title, then replace "REQ" with "ABC" or whatever you need.

    Hope that helps!
  • brogers_1's avatar
    brogers_1
    Occasional Contributor
    13 years ago
    No, I mean if I have a list of requirements, is there a way to add REQ-XXXX to the beginning of all existing titles?
  • barbarae's avatar
    barbarae
    Staff
    13 years ago
    Sorry, no. The only way to trigger the auto numbering is either at Add or at Edit - you can type in REQ-XXXX on the edit form and at Submit it will auto-increment to REQ-0001, but there's no equivalent in Fast Edit.