Unique System-wide Identification of Catalog Values

The combination of Catalog No. + Text (in the catalog base language) + KA-TenNo serves as the system-wide key for catalog values (e.g. when communicating). As the catalog base language is generally a language that is used in the system, the catalog text may be prone to changes.

To uniquely identify catalog values you can use the external key in the base language. The external keys remain unchanged when transferring data between development and live systems (e.g. using CRM.cockpit), so that for example reports that query specific catalog values work on all stations.

You can prevent users of the live system from editing or deleting these external keys in the access rights, see Defining Access Rights for Variable Catalogs. You can thus ensure that no keys are overwritten when communicating between the live and development systems.

To automatically create external keys for the catalog base language when adding catalog values:

  1. Enable the Automatically enter external keys configuration entry, see Catalogs.

To create external keys for the catalog base language for existing catalog values:

  1. Start mmba.exe on the catalog maintenance station using the --genextkey parameter, see mmba.exe Parameters.

    Existing external keys are not overwritten.

External keys are generated using the following format: <station>_<catno>_<code> or <station>_<catno>_<code (parent)>_<code>.

Examples:

1_2_37: Station 1, Country catalog, catalog value with code 37

100_46_1_2: Station 100, Interests catalog, parent catalog code 1, catalog value with code 2

If an external key is already present in the database as the external key of another catalog value, no key is created for the current catalog value. In this case, the following message is written to the active module's log file: Catalogs ;Warning ;Generated external key already exists: '1_18_2'. In this case, you need to enter the external key manually, see Editing Variable Catalogs.