What is the purpose of the Altenative Item No. Field

themave

I have looked up the help, here is what it says:

Alternative Item No. Field"
The Item Table
Here you can enter the number of an item that can substitute the original item. To see the item numbers that have been set up in the Item table, click the up-arrow on the right side of the field.
If an item is out of stock or discontinued, the Alternative Item No. field can quickly help you suggest a similar item to the customer."

My question is I don't see where this functionality is ever actually used in Navision anywhere. the item substitution is different and is what seems to actually perform the function described by the Alternative Item No. Field.

I am thinking of using the field to track actual alternative Items so I can use some reports to update pricing of like items, and before I use the field I want to make sure it is not going to mess something else in the system. Like finding the requisition system uses the field or something like that. I am an end user and don't have a way to find where else it is used, or even if it is used.

We sell both OEM parts and a related non-oem part, the customer pays more for the genuine part (OEM) and less for the Non-OEM, currently I price them separately, but I would like to setup a processing only report that would take the OEM part and then apply a discount to the Non-OEM part automatically, so I could update the pricing on the OEM, and then just run a quick report and have the Non-OEM part updated as well. As it stands now, I have to export both the parts into an excel file (actually 10's of thousands of parts) and then edit the pricing in excel and dataport it back into Navision.

Alex_Chow

One easy way to find out where it's used is to export all of the objects in Navision into Text and do a search on Alternative Item No.

themave

Alex Chow wrote:

One easy way to find out where it's used is to export all of the objects in Navision into Text and do a search on Alternative Item No.

Unfortunately, like I said, I am an end user and can't get access to that, unable to export to text file, don't have premission

aseigle

We posted the same question on the NAV forum a week or so ago and are still waiting on a response. As far as we can tell, the field is for informational purposes only, as there seems to be no functionality behind it.

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/partnerdynamicsnav/thread/79d4dc7f-f301-44fa-bff7-ead625d128ec

SPost29

According to the dev toolkit, there is no usage for this field except in Lanhams EDI and them only to copy the field
Steve

themave

Thanks for the info

aseigle

from MS:

Hello Adam,

Thanks for the request posted on the Forum.

The Alternative Item No. field appears to be limited in its functionality. It is designed to be a quick reference field to identify another item with similar qualities.

If the Customer requires more functionality beyond the Alternative Item No. functionality, I would highly recommend the Item Substitutions functionality. The Item Substitutions granule and functionality provides for the ability to suggest other Items as a possible substitute for the Item if it is out of stock. From the Sales Order lines, the Line > Select Item Substitutions can be used to identify a possible Item that can be sold instead.

The Blocked field will prevent the Item from being posted to any further, so it would not appear that the Alternative Item No. is designed to go so far as to block the posting of an Item if an Alternative Item No. exists. This is where the Blocked field would come in.

Please let me know if you have further questions.