Prevent Characteristic Being Sorted

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I'm trying to create a characteristic in CT04 to hold an address in a functional location class, however, I cannot seem to find a way of preventing the values entered being sorted into alphabetical order, meaning the address gets mixed up.

The characteristic is set to character format with multiple lines, the idea being that each line of the address is entered on a different line. This works fine until the values are confirmed and pulled back onto the 'Classification' tab of the functional location. It is at this point the different lines are sorted into alphabetical order, meaning that if the postcode starts with a letter earlier in the alphabet than the city it is moved above it, which is not what we want. Is there a way to preserve the values in the order in which they were entered?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Richard

[former_member42744]

Once you have saved the characteristic with the values in it, go back into it in edit mode. Go to the values screen,

Select the value you want to move, click on the move icon at the bottom of the values list. Clcik on the characteristic you wanthe value to be listed after. Click on the move icon again. The entry should be moved. Save.

The values stayed in the right places when I came back in again later.

Craig

[Former Member]

Thanks for that Craig. However, I'm not actually talking about sorting the predefined values within a Characteristic - I mean when a user is entering free-text values themselves. Perhaps an image would be helpful.

When the user enters the address, pressing enter after each line, it appears in the correct order (in the order of entry) which can be seen [here|http://www.richread.net/images/entry.jpg].

Once the entry is confirmed by clicking the 'green tick' and the user is returned to the Classification tab of the functional location, the values entered are sorted into alphabetical order, as seen [here|http://www.richread.net/images/confirm.jpg].

Is there a way to prevent this? Preferably using standard functionality but if anyone has any ideas for an enhancement, that'd be useful too.

Thanks,

Richard

[Former Member]

Hi Richard,

you have defined a characteristic which allows multiple valuation. In classification you can assign then not only a single value - you can assign a set of values. Each line of an address is then an element of such a set. The sequence of input does not define any order. Even if you would be able to disable sorting for output, there would be no guarantee and no intention that input sequence is preserved.

If the number of addresses isn't too high and you're using the addresses multiply you may consider to store the address in the long text of predefined values. The value would then be only an abbreviation for the complete address.

Best regards,

Rolf Dörsam

[former_member42744]

Yes.. as mentioned above Richard the values themselves cannot be maintained in any special order. I have heard of folks using something like periods in the begining of each line to control the sorting.

i.e. use a period to start the first entry, two periods for second line, etc.. it's ugly but usually works. But I'm not sure what happens if you actually delete a line and then replace it with a new one. You may lost the sorting even using the periods.

What I have done in the past in such cases is to use multiple characteristics. So for addresses you would have

NAME

Addr_1

Addr_2

City

State

ZIP

Country

You can put the characteristics into the order you want.

Craig

[Former Member]

No Solution ?

I found this codeline on CTMS_DDB_SET_VALUE :

SORT WS BY MINDX WINDX ATFLV ATWRT. "db H133701

Why this Sort for Char Data ?

I use characteristic multiple lines to save filename (often greater than 30 chars).

But in AUSP table my data is mixed.

For Example :

Filename = 11111111111111111111111111111113333333333333333333333333333333222222222222

In AUSP i have :

001   017   0000  111111111111111111111111111111

002   017   0000  222222222222222

003   017   0000  333333333333333333333333333333

I need to keep order.

[Former Member]

Are you listening SAP?

Having the option to NOT sort multivalue entries would be a VERY useful feature with many applications.

This would allow for storing characteristic values longer than 30 characters(such as file names or URL addersses).  It would allow storing multi line data such as mailing addresses or just some simple text.  Also allow capturing of a series of values in a specific order, such as assembly connection sequence.  The possibilities are endless.  But we can't do any of this because you won't give us the option to specify the sequence or to simply NOT sort.

How hard can it be?