Auto Numbering - Customer ID

It has been fun seeing the document that i published YEARS ago roll around the internet on how to auto-assign customer/supplier/project ID. I made it to be public for that reason… but it has gone under many iterations.
Method 1: I “invented” 25 years ago was to create a phoney customer ID called “Next”… and in the customer record, I bumped the number… but that method is bad because you always had to “hide” this phony customer.
Method 2 (I borrowed from someone) was to put a UD Field in the Company table, and have a BPM update that… I really didn’t like the idea of constantly editing the company table.
Method 3: I saw someone had used a UD01 table to store the data in. I never implemented this, nor did i like it because it tied up an entire table.
Method 4: I realized that we now had UDCode table, which is a “Table of tables”… you could have a UDCode called “Next” and then entries for each next entry you wanted “Customer” “Supplier”,etc… This is the prior method I always recommended and was used many times in both E9 and E10.
Method 5: the LATEST iteration uses a little known built in ICE function that can create and store a “Next” ID of your choosing.
Attached is the latest version of the document. Have fun.How to Auto Assign Customer E10 using ICE Next number.pdf (868.7 KB)

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