Deterministic generations

Not all generations support generating and adjusting (patching) a transitional document.

Since the adjustment (patch) procedure supports matching the lines primarily by Line No. the generation should guarantee to always generate the same line numbers, given the same starting document.

If you execute a generation several times for the same document, the same line numbers will be generated. This can be guaranteed if the generation creates the sub-document(s) using data only from the source (parent) document and doesn't look outside of it.

Common external data that can make a generation non-deterministic includes:

• Using date or time
• Using available quantities
• Using data from the definitions of related objects

Generations sometimes use outside data and are still considered deterministic. The main driving factor is whether this outside data influences the resulting line numbers. If a generation uses outside data, but still generates the same line numbers, it's considered deterministic for the purposes of document generation.

Most often, deterministic generations generate exactly one line for each parent line. They use the line number from the parent line to set the line number of the generated line (without auto-numbering).

For example, let's have the following sales order:

• sales order line 10: Product1 Qty=15
• sales order line 20: Product2 Qty=25

and two generations that use this input to create a store order:

Generation A generates the store order using strictly the data from the sales order and generates:

• store order line 10: Product1 Qty=15
• store order line 20: Product2 Qty=25

Generation A is deterministic and can support adjusting transitional documents.

Generation B uses the current available quantities to split the lines of the sales order, based on the availability of the different lots. It generates:

• store order line 10: Product1 Lot11 Qty=8
• store order line 20: Product1 Lot12 Qty=7
• store order line 30: Product2 Lot21 Qty=25

Generation B cannot be used to adjust (patch) the generated document.

The line numbers of the generated document will vary, based on the current availability.

Therefore, Generation B is non-deterministic

Adjustment procedure

If a transitional document needs adjustment after it's generated (to be in-line with its parent), an adjustment document is created. It's a peer document that contains changes, and is usually hidden in the document tree.

Such documents are used to adjust (patch) main documents. The operation is executed upon setting the adjustment document status. Then, the main document is updated to reflect the changes.

Generating adjustment documents

When a generation supporting adjustment of transitional documents is executed, it checks the sub-documents.

If it founds documents that can be adjusted (patched), it automatically generates changes-only document(s).

Generations usually determine the changes in the following way:

• If a quantity, amount or other scalar attribute is updated, a 'changes' line is generated, containing the numeric difference between the scalars.

• If notes, dates or other non-scalar attributes are updated, a 'changes' line is generated, containing the new values for the non-scalars.

• Rule 1 and 2 can be combined. A 'changes' line can include both scalar and non-scalar changes. However, scalars are updated with 'difference' value, while non-scalars are updated with 'last' value.