Tag ID Info

 
Costume Tag ID’s
 
When you add a new costume you will see a popup window which will ask about the Costume /Tag ID.  There are three options:  You may select to use the next number in the sequence or enter a new number of your own choosing or scan an inventory tag (with a barcode scanner) that is already in a costume. If you have Inventory Tags with sequential numbers (available from Costume & Theatre Inventory Resources) it is easy to just select the next number in the sequence that matches your inventory tag.  If you choose to enter a new number or letter/number combination  - that is fine as well.  Once the Costume ID is assigned to a Costume record, it is saved with this record. .
 
You may start with any number / letter combination  i.e. 100, SB-123-601, etc.  Your Tag ID must have at least one number cannot end with letters.  (See Appendix B for more details.)  Only 12 digits (A12345678901) will be displayed on the forms and reports due to the limits of space but you can have longer ID’s.  A list of all current ID #’s is shown at the bottom of the screen
 
If you have inventory tags with barcodes you can use a hand-held barcode scanner to read a tag #/ ID and place it in a database field at the point of the cursor.  You may use the scanner to insert a tag # / ID in the Add New Costume screen, select a costume piece for a check-out record and scan a tag for the Quick Check-in screen.  See the Appendix / Barcode Readers for more information.
 
How Costume Tag ID's are sorted:
 
To manage all the possibilities of the numbers, letters and symbols in a Tag ID the following system was set up.  A new field was created to hold the sorting key.
 
Numbers:  Numbers are treated as text values and have 0's placed in front of the numbers so that the numeric value is preservers:
 
Example:   12345 is         0012345
10  is             0000010
 
Letters are kept as they are:  ABC  = ABC
 
A combined letter and number ID:  ABC-134  = ABC-0000134
 
B15-2  =    B0000015-0000002
B15-13  =  B0000015-0000013
 
 
Each time a Costume or Prop record is added the Sorting Key is created.  If you suspect that your records are not sorting correctly you can go to the Costume/Prop Utilities menus and use the "Update Costume / Prop Sorting" function to refresh the sorting keys.