Summary
To provide a basic walkthrough, there are several other aspects of Spec Management configuration that were not covered in the previous four articles. Two of these are Measurement Attributes and Spec Versioning. This article contains information on both.
Measurement Attributes
A Measurement Attribute enables users to input specification values where the attributes can have multiple components such as a high & low range, a target value, a unit of measure, test method, etc. Each component attribute can have a different datatype, but all will be recorded under the same, single, multi-component Measurement Attribute. Here is how you create a Measurement Attribute.
A set of six attributes under the group-name "Measurements" is supplied with your Spec Management module. If you don't find these in your system, please contact your CSM. These Attributes are standardized to ensure the Measurement function works as intended. PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THEM IN ANY WAY! They will provide the component data for your compound Measurement Attributes.
- You can tell when you're looking at a set of "component Attributes", because each one's group will read "Measurements" but the data types will vary. On the other hand, a "compound Measurement Attribute" will always have the data type "Measurement", but the group will be variable.
- You can configure Workflows and Business Rules on the individual component Attributes, but not on the compound Attributes.
Steps
Step 1: Create a compound Measurement Attribute from the components above. Go to Configuration > Attributes and click New.
"Measurement" Attributes are exactly that - a way to put measurement data into your Spec. They do not initiate actions such as Workflows or check Business Rules to produce a result, as most other Attributes do.
Step 2: Fill in all information in the top half of the form (Column Name will fill in automatically). In the 'Use' drop-down, when you select 'Specification Management', the system will add a suffix, '_SpecMgmt', to your Attribute ID and your Column Name. When you click 'Save', the bottom half of the form, usually occupied by a text-window for a Normalization SQL Script, will change to a Measurement Components grid.
Step 3: In the Measurement Components grid top section, check any of the boxes you want to display in your specifications, and pick a 'Display As' format for them from the drop-downs. In your Spec Template TraceStation, 'Target' will be a numeric and 'Other' will be a large free-text box for a comment. Here's an example of a completed Measurement Attribute.
Here's how a typical compound Measurement Attribute might look in your specification once it's filled in. We recommend that you create at least two Measurement Attributes for use in your system, or more, as needed.
Spec Versioning
As your products continually evolve from new ingredients coming to market, updated standards and regulations, business decisions, etc., an important factor in Spec Management is Versioning. If you're planning changes in your recipes and line operations, or changes in stocking and shelf displays, you will also need to make very sure your Item Specifications match what you're selling afterward. But as mentioned before, you typically won't want to Delete outdated Specs, due to the historical record and certification of precision they provide against your older products.
The New Version button is at upper left on any Primary Spec TraceStation. When you use it, the system creates a complete copy of the Version you currently have open, finds all previous Version-numbers EVER used for that Primary Spec, and applies a new, uneditable Version number to the copy by adding "1" to the highest number found. This "highest existing + 1" increment occurs regardless of which of the existing Spec-Versions you use "New Version" within, When you use it, you'll get a pop-up like this.
This does NOT allow you to set the Version number yourself. It only allows you to add a string of characters, a "secondary name", to the number the system has generated. You might want to type a date in here, or some other identifying detail, but this is completely optional. The result shown in your Primary Spec will be similar to "9- 7/1/2020", or "9- Added Chemical Attribs", "9" being the system-generated number.
If you do delete a version at some point, that version-number will not be reused. The NEW version-number will simply be "highest that EVER existed + 1". The system tracks this.
Shared specs have no versioning mechanism of their own. They use the version of the Primary from which they were created. Be aware that when you create a new version, you must create Shared Specs again from it, as all Shared Specs are permanently linked to the Primary version from which they were generated. This also means that you will have to get this new version of the spec vetted again, both internally and with your Supplier(s).
'New Version' has no effect on your Primary Template TraceStation. Templates are at the root of Spec Management, and are only used for making repeated copies of Item Specs. Versioning takes place in each Item Primary Spec, separately.
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